The most life changing and defining years of my musical journey
I will never quite appreciate what the honour was of my 4 years spent with my late mentor and ‘last of the Scottish Travellers’. A man from another era, realm, culture and time and one we will not see the likes of ever again. Stanley Robertson (8 June 1940 – 2 August 2009) was a formidable song carrier, storyteller and custodian of some of the oldest and rarest songs in the land. I could speak for hours of the time I spent in his last few years being initiated into the ‘way of song’ passed down through his culture and people. It was his song and spiritual instruction that has defined my work, my music, my life decisions and my philosophy on what being a singer means. I received a teaching experience that will never happen again in the old way of an old song master sharing their wisdom with the next generation. He really was the last ‘Keeper of the Lore’ as was the name for the old world custodians of such an enormous repertoire and understanding of what these songs and stories meant to a people. Stanley was a true indigenous Scots man who in his later years was finally recognised by the wider world and academia as being a rare and soon to disappear representative of a way of life and magical style of song carrying that would be extinct at the end of his life. My time with him was a brief 4 years but it was what I needed to receive the teachings and confidence to go and develop my work as a singer, song carrier, song collector and life supporter for the Traveller people to encourage a recognition of their cultural importance and need for equity and respect in the wider world. Stanleys memory still lives on in his many publications, books, his CD of some of his finest songs and the many many PHDs and hours of recordings made of him by researchers into the Traveller culture.
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Stanley Robertson
