No Henks

Details

Description

I played in various bands in the 1960s/early ‘70s but never ever put any recorded material out. The band, Lordy, came close to signing a deal with Mud’s management and, in an effort to convince them we could write our own material, we made a rough demo of two songs I’d written and had half a dozen acetate 45rpm discs cut. Each band member got one and the others went to London.

That was in 1972, and I’d never written or recorded anything else for fifty years, until I began to come up with melodies and match them to poems I’d written from experiences I had and characters I’d known or been told about, when living in The Borders (both in Selkirk and Hawick). They’ve all been written in the “mither tongue,” although those relating to Hawick are very much in the more distinctive auld Hawick tongue.

It is my intention to record a full album of Hawick-related material, and another that will focus on Selkirk, at some point in 2024.

The two Lordy tracks were taken from a very well-played acetate, as you will hear.

NO HENKS has been described as a Cheery Odin rant.
A strong memory I have – especially from my time working in the Pesco’s knitwear factory in the 1960s, is how much you heard broad Hawick spoken. It had an almost musical rhythm inter-mingled with the clatter of machinery, and developed a much softer tone in the relative quiet of the hand-sewing flat or stock rooms and offices. The native tongue was as big a part of identity as anything. A birthright. The other thing that struck me most from interactions with these dyed-in-the-wool Teries, was their straightforward character. It was no-nonsense honest and refreshingly direct.

I got to pondering what they would have had to say about this modern-day fascination with words and sayings, perceived to be “cool,” and how they fall into mildly irritating widespread use, like wildfire. This one just spilled out one night after I had heard “comfort zone” and “wow factor” uttered repeatedly while watching TV. As my wife, Bren said: “I suppose it’s better oot than in!”

This is presented as part of a wider campaign to publicise and promote the upcoming albums, but will not be included on either of them as the material for those projects is very much focused on place and those who live or once lived there.