I’ll Sing On
The ‘feisty’ Skye choirmaster who taught Sabhal Mor Ostaig’s founder to speak Gaelic and told him to burn his scruffy jacket is the subject of a new book raising money to help cure the cancer that ended her life early.
I’ll Sing On, which launched at the Skye Book Festival, tells the story of a girl of Lewis and Skye parentage, Catriona Maclean Mackinnon. Catriona, an enthusiastic singer, harpist and Gaelic choirmaster, who developed Hodgkin lymphoma while still a young wife and mother.
I’ll Sing On tells the story of her feisty personality, her passion for music and her struggles with health and faith. It relates her happy childhood in Glasgow, family tragedy and then success at the RSAMD, now the Royal Conservatoire.
Married and living in Skye, she revived the Broadford Gaelic choir. The first outing to the Inverness Mòd was an uproarious but successful occasion. She also sang successfully at Mòds, the Pan Celtic Festival and other venues including the BBC.
The author Gilbert McKinnon wrote: ‘Still a young wife and mother, she was diagnosed with the shocking news that she was suffering from a life-threatening illness. Showing impressive strength of character, she decided to press on with her commitment to music and her struggle for perfection.
‘In the midst of this, she unexpectedly found Christian faith and showed ongoing commitment in trying to reach an understanding of her faith and in determining how to live out that faith in the context of her music culture. Her many letters reveal her spiritual journey in those days.
‘Loved by many, she was an inspiration to others. As one of her friends said, “Somehow, she worried her way into your affection, like a little terrier. All the time, you knew that whatever mood she wore on the surface, underneath it all a deadly fight was going on. She never lowered the flag”.’
She and her husband Neil were friends of Sir Iain Noble, and Catriona helped to teach him Gaelic while his plans for Sabhal Mor Ostaig were still formulating.
Sir Iain would arrive at their mobile home for a Gaelic lesson, often wearing an old sports jacket which he found familiar and comfortable. Catriona would mischievously tease him about the worn elbows and cuffs and tell him to throw the jacket in the waste bin. Neil later scolded her for being cheeky but she responded: ‘He knows perfectly well he shouldn’t go around with a scruffy jacket like that.’
Graciously, Iain never took offence. Instead, he arrived one day still wearing the jacket but with new leather elbow patches and leather cuffs that had been carefully added by an Edinburgh tailor.
Later, when she was spending time in hospital, Sir Iain graciously took her with him to the launching of the first ship of his new company, Seaforth Maritime.
When she next spoke to Neil, she said: ‘You should have heard the speech that he made. It really shook me and I thought of the abuse I had given him in the caravan when I told him to go and burn his jacket.’ Neil said: ‘I told you time and time again to be careful what you said to him.’ But Iain did not mind. He would never take offence; he just laughed.
He encouraged her musically and she played several times at Sabhal Mor, including the first fairly informal concert there in the early days of the college. The Noble family of Ardkinglas, Argyll, had long been supportive of the arts at the RSAMD.
Ill with a life-threatening disease, Catriona turned to considering matters of faith. In these struggles, she was much helped by the Rev Fraser Tallach and later by the Rev Jack MacArthur, well-known names in the Highlands and Islands. The book includes extracts from her own writings in those days where she was addressing matters of faith and seeking to come to terms with her illness.
At the Skye Book Festival, the audience were particularly touched to see film of her singing with her excellent clarsach playing and to hear her sing the favourite song of her last year which concludes movingly with the words, I’ll Sing On.
Another presentation of her story is planned for February 2018 at the Gaelic College in Sleat, Skye, itself founded by Sir Iain Noble. The proceeds from the sale of the book go to help research at the University of Glasgow into the early diagnosis and cure of Hodgkin lymphoma.
Leac a’ Clàrsair, Rock of the Harper
A lady living in Broadford, Lucy Sanderson The Taylor, wrote a poem for Catriona, Leac a’ Clàrsair, The Rock of the Harper. This is the name given to a stone on the hillside some distance from the road between Harrapool, Broadford, and the village of Heaste.
The stone lies on the shore of a hillside loch, beside a hazel copse near some outcrops of limestone in an area where some rare flowers are found and blue butterflies can be seen, a species found only near limestone. A beautiful spot in spring, it may have been a place where a harpist had long ago played in solitude; it may also have been so named because the flat slab of rock itself looked like the shape of a harp.