CC: Jim, if you ask me, that’s some coded racist nonsense. If people up here are upset because some black and Asian musicians are offering their own interpretations of a long-dead poet, rather than finding it positive that his work is still reaching people, then I think that’s really their lookout. I mean, are you familiar with the work of any of the musicians I’ve got guesting on this album?

JA: Ha ha. Well, you’ve got Donald Bain on there, who long-term listeners might know as a very fine fiddler indeed – he’s contributed to any number of excellent albums in recent time and his presence will probably be a point of reassurance for some. And I understand he’s your uncle, is he?

CC: He’s my godfather. But why would people need reassurance, Jim? Surely we’re not that precious about the work of a man who died two hundred years ago that we can’t let a woman and some non-white men sing his songs?

JA: Ha ha. Of course not. And on that note, let’s hear one of the songs from A Northern Lass – Clio Campbell, singing Robert Burns’s ‘Ae Fond Kiss’.

DONALD

Edinburgh, 1993

Donald hated wearing a suit. It was increasingly necessary now, or at least the waistcoat and shirt were, seemed to be expected at certain gigs, but he couldn’t thole it. Just felt the whole time that he was buttoned up wrong, over-fettered. A silly damn muddle.

She’d actually said at first, ‘And don’t you bother wearing a suit or anything. Just come as you please. A great big jumper with holes in the elbows, and your fiddle. That’s how I remember my Uncle Donald.’ The girl knew how to work him, he’d give her that. No contact for months then a sudden rush of affection down the phone. But that had always been her way. Almost as though she’d rediscovered him, unearthed him in her memory.

‘Well of course it’ll be you to walk me down the aisle. Who else would I ask, eh? And maybe you’d play for us too? Just at the signing? It seems right to me.’

The next call was from Mansfield himself, explaining that his parents would probably expect a certain level of attire. ‘I mean, it’s not a big wedding. Not at all. Just family. But they are taking us all out for dinner somewhere nice afterwards. And you know, the pictures. So. All right, pal. Yeah?’ A dry cough. The sternness of a tour manager.

So. A suit it was. He swore at the idiot collar buttons in the tiny bed-and-breakfast mirror, noticed a shaving cut had leaked blood onto the starched point, pulled the damn thing off and started all over again.