The boy soprano who aimed high
August 2008
Photograph by Kate Sutherland
by Alex Salmond, talking to Lindy Cheyne
Beezer Brown, my singing teacher, was distraught. Throughout my childhood I had had a fine soprano voice, and showed great promise. I sang some fairly serious stuff, I was semi-professional.
In the early Seventies, my voice broke, and the glorious, soaring tenor voice that Beezer had predicted, failed to arrive. What he got instead was a faltering baritone with a range of about four notes. My singing career came to an abrupt halt.
But there was an enormous benefit. If at the age of 10 or 11 you can sing in front of hundreds of people, speaking in the Scottish parliament or the House of Commons is no different whatsoever. And that applies to any child… if you can perform at that age, in front of people, it is the easiest and best way of imbuing confidence. That is why I am so keen to see the promotion of theatre, dance and song.
It left me with poise, command of audiences – and speaking is much easier than performing. There are other benefits. I was a terribly asthmatic child, and breathing was very important in my singing career. When you are making a speech, the way you breathe is very important for the way you accentuate a phrase.
One of the great tragedies of my job is that there is little time for reading. You get to go to a whole lot of events and meet lots of interesting people, though, and see interesting plays and performances. As a matter of course, I have a young Scottish musician at everything I do, at the castle or anywhere else. It’s an opportunity to display some talent.
I have my own piper in Stirling, young Connor Sinclair, the under-13 champion. He’s fantastic, I met him at the Save the Regiments event; his ambition was to be the pipe major of the Black Watch – that was his family’s regiment – but it was not to be. So I made him my unofficial ‘official’ piper. And since he has gone to the school this year, you can see the change in his ornamentation, his twirls, the maturity of his playing; he’s a brilliant wee piper – and much cheaper than an entire band, so I tell him!
Hopefully we are helping to change the perception of Scotland internationally. I’m not a ‘Wha’s like us’ person, never have been. I’m very familiar with Scotland’s faults and foibles and failings, but, trying to stand back for a second, there are very few countries that have influenced history as Scotland has.
Iit is perfectly obvious to me why Scotland has achieved so much – it is the Scots’ appreciation of education. Universal education was a Scottish invention, in the 16th and17th centuries, and out of that came every other Scottish invention. Therefore the idea that this country which has achieved so much should sink into unrecognised obscurity, as a provincial quasi country, is just ridiculous.
So I look forward to a reversal of Scottish fortunes; it has already started with the cultural revival, then the political revival, and hopefully an economic revival as well.
The outlook for Scotland is fundamentally better; without it the outlook for having a Scotland at all in the mid-20th century would be in serious question.
There is a quote somewhere – I’ve never actually looked it up – from a somewhat annoyed Conservative MP in the 1950s, declaring in the House of Commons, “Haven’t we reached the stage where Scotland is England?”
England has a fantastic cultural and literary tradition, stretching back the best part of a millennium, over a range of activities, but that tradition is eroding quickly, much to England’s detriment.
But we have challenges in keeping this momentum going, and the biggest challenge is getting the magnificence of Scottish cultural expression on to a modern setting – in stage and television and film.
That’s why I set up the Broadcasting Commission, almost as soon as I came into office; something which is not within the province of the powers of Parliament, but which is absolutely necessary to it, to focus attention on the lack of opportunity we have in getting our wonderful creative people on to a wider canvas. And hopefully we can do something about that.
We have had successes – take the festivals we have throughout Scotland, wonderful festivals like the new arts festival, Coast. Our winter festival will run from St Andrews Night through to Burns’ Night – the logical beginning of our Homecoming, which will flow through next year – and which will be fundamentally important to Leopard magazine.
The drawback is that as soon is something is successful, you can’t get to see it. There are lots of wonderful productions on for one night at the Traverse or somewhere, and never seen again, because there isn’t that next step to take them round the country.
We have produced great theatre like The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black Black Oil, and Sunset Song – these are expensive to produce. We have the world’s largest international festival in Edinburgh, but how much of it is televised?
Vienna is the place to be on New Years’ Day, but let’s face it, it’s the same concert every year, but it has world prominence.
Compare that with the Edinburgh Festival, and how little is done in terms of international promotion. The Edinburgh Festival programme should be being beamed across the planet. Every year the highlights should be brought together and promoted internationally. We probably get one hour of the Tattoo; we do so little with so much. To do all we need to do we must have the financial control that makes it possible.
You get all these guys coming up for the television festival, signed off from their largely metropolitan agendas, Michael Grade and the like. These people are infuriating. You know it was Michael Grade who was responsible for suggesting to the director general of the BBC that there was no need for drama productions from Scotland because the talent wasn’t there?
The whole problem in Scotland with what’s left of Westminster is that we have to spend too much time and energy trying to second guess what they think about this, that and the next thing in London.
I want to get to the position where, if we want to do something in Scotland, we do it. If we make a mistake we do something about it; if it we do it well, let’s do more of it. That’s the psychology of independence. Let’s put the community and the country first.
I went to see the kids of Drumblade Primary who are campaigning for a wood pellet boiler for their school. I told them that having the boiler will be good, but the most important thing is that they have the right attitude and are doing it.
When McDermott spoke of Scottish society, he told of meeting the challenge and having the triumph. I like that; I like to see folk meeting the challenge and having the triumph. The kids of Drumblade will remember the day they won the boiler, and will go on to greater things.
Rosalind (Lindy) Cheyne makes the most of life with a Leopard at the fit o’ Bennachie.
This is an article from the August 2008 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, see our subscription details.