Look what they've done to my song
IT was a song loved by homesick Scots in every part of the world — which came as a surprise to the woman who wrote the lyrics.
No-one told Kilsythian Helen Macdonald that her poem, We're a' Scottish Here, had been set to music and that it had become a worldwide hit.
And she was less than delighted to find the lyrics had somehow become the property of a Glasgow music publishing firm.
The now forgotten song was once described as one of the most popular Scottish patriotic songs to have been written in half-a-century.
Helen Macdonald penned the poem while living in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She did in time win a victory of sorts with the music company in her battle to be recognised as the songwriter.
Born Helen Allison in Kilsyth in 1864, she had already established a reputation as a talented poetess by the time she left school. Her work regularly appeared in several Stirlingshire newspapers.
Helen married Glasgow grocer William Bayne in 1887. His business failed and they emigrated to the United States in 1891.
But her homeland was never far from her thoughts, and she sent her poem about Scotland to one of the newspapers to which she had been a regular contributor.
A reader asked the manager for permission to set the poem to music, and soon it was being sung at social gatherings all over Scotland.
It was only a matter of time before it was reminding nostalgic Scots exiles in Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa of the land they had left behind.
Among them was none other than Andrew Carnegie, the Dunfermline-born industrialist and philanthropist. Helen treasured a letter he sent her in 1897, in which Carnegie compared her work to that of Burns.
''You have done much by giving us a Scottish song that will last,'' he told her.
''Mrs Carnegie drummed it over on the piano one night and was captivated by it.
''She proclaimed it worthy of election to the choice list she delights to sing, and they go straight to all hearts.''
By this time Helen must have won her fight with the publishers to be recognised as the author of the words. An amazed Helen only appears to have found she had written a hit song when it was published in Kohler's Musical Monthly. She immediately wrote to the music publishers and the offending newspaper.
In a lecture to the Old Glasgow Club in 1927, another admirer of her poetry described the song as ''one of the most popular patriotic Scottish songs written during the past 50 years.
''It is but right to say that the poetess received no pecuniary benefit from the publication of her song,'' said the speaker, ''her sole reward was the honour of having written a lyric which is sung by her ''ain folk'' all over the world.
''It is safe to say that only two other songs, My Ain Wee House and My Ain Folk, attained the same popularity among the Scottish people both at home and abroad during the past 30 years.
''We're a' Scottish Here has been sung in the lumber camps of NW America, in the Australian bush, at Scottish gatherings in South Africa, and everywhere all over the world where Scotsmen meet.''
By the time that speech was made Helen had been widowed and had returned to Scotland, living in Milngavie with her second husband, Hugh Macdonald, caretaker of the local Constitutional Club.
She was still composing poetry, much of it about the scenery around Milngavie. She could often be seen out walking on Drumclog Moor and the Milngavie and Bearsden Herald credited her with being usually the first person to hear the cuckoo in the spring.
She wrote a column for the Herald as well as poetry, and was also the author of a book called Uncle Dol. No doubt she was also listening to the songs people were singing, just in case...
Helen Macdonald died in Stirling in September 1939.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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