Tuesday 18/10/05 - Royal National Mod (Day 3)

Day 2 of the Mod, and mrs B's Canadian guests arrive today. Two couples from the Victoria Gaelic Choir on Vancouver Island will be with us until Saturday. Before they arrive, I head down to the Sports Centre to listen to young precentors. Precenting is a practice in the Free (Presbyterian) Church, where a precentors sings out a psalm a line at a time, and the congregation pitches in. It gives a very peculiar sound. The children have a group of their classmates as 'congregation', whilst the precentor does his or her job. Return to Newton for lunch, and meet Carmel and John, as well as Ann and Gordon. They have choir practice at 5pm and 10am each day. This evening and tomorrow night they will be having dinner at mrs B's. Just before 2, I head into town, to listen to various school choirs in An Lanntair.

The first competition sees choirs from Glasgow, Tarbert [Harris], Back, Lionel and Shawbost competing by singing Bat' an Taillear and Cailleach a'Ghobhainn. The organisational nightmares become apparent whe we're kept waiting for a choir to turn up that has had to sing at a different venue elsewhere in the town. One person sits behind a keyboard on a table, for the sole purpose of giving the starting note. Two adjudicators are seated in front of the stage. One of them judges the Gaelic, the other the music. The adjudicators have got the relevant pieces of musical score in front of them. The choisters are all dressed uniformly. The first competition is won by the Sir E Scott School of Tarbert. The musical adjudicator give us a little speech, telling the audience and participants what he was expecting. The Gaelic adjudicator does likewise. She speaks in Gaelic, but gives the marks out in English at popular request. Maletta MacPhail is known to me after project Timbertown. I should point out that the Mod is all about Gaelic culture. As I neither speak nor understand the language, I have to select those competitions where a knowledge of Gaelic is not top of the list of priorities. I.e. I am focusing on music. I still have considerable problems, but just manage to keep abreast of proceedings. In this competition, North Lanark Choir had to withdraw. Well after the official starting time of 3 pm, the second choral competition of the afternoon commences. Participants here are from schools in Back, Tarbert, Lionel and Barvas. They sing Null do dh'Uibhist and 'S cian bho dh'fhag mi Leodhas. Choirs from Glasgow and North Lanark withdrew. At the adjudication, marks out of a 100 are awarded for Gaelic and for music. The aggregate total determines who wins, and for this competition (C73), it's Lionel. Barbara MacKenzie, one of mrs B's nieces, is delighted. The conductor of the Barvas choir pulled a face as he left the stage, but he was 3rd out of 4. In front of me, a boy of 10 is fidgeting and fiddling with the seats. People move back and forth along the rows between performances. At 4.30, proceedings draw to a close and I return to Newton. Mrs B is getting in a flap to get supper ready for the Canadians, but still manages to pull it all off at 7pm. I act as waiter, serving everything onto and off the table. Although I had my supper at a normal hour, the guests remained at their table until 9.30, and mrs B could not eat until 10.20. A fire is lit in the sitting room, and I entertain our foursome with some Gaelic songs on the keyboard. At times, I feel like a pied piper. Mrs B's granddaughter is drawn to my playing, as is her cousin. The Canadians like it. Ann and Gordon retire for the night fairly early, as they have had a long journey. I'm chatting to John and Carmel for quite some time. Bed at midnight.