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WHEN FIRST I CAME TO CALEDONIA
© Nicola Pulham | Dreamstime.com
My kids are half Canadian. Their dad grew up in Cape Breton in Nova Scotia on the maritime east coast. Indeed, he’s just been there celebrating the 80th birthday of his mum, my kids’ remarkable Grandma, Joella Foulds.  She’s a former psychiatric social worker with a background in accessible contraceptive health and support for young mothers. She’s also a songwriter, a singer (including tours with Canadian music legend, Rita McNeill), and an erstwhile broadcaster and music manager. One of Joella’s many unique contributions in her life is co-founding Celtic Colours International Festival nearly thirty years ago, an annual celebration of the island’s traditional and roots music. Our kids sort of owe their existence to it. Find out more about Joella’s life and work here. Cape Breton has many different cultural traditions, not least those of indigenous Mi’kmaq people. There’s a French speaking community too, especially at Chéticamp and Isle Madame. But one of the biggest historic cultural influences on the island is immigrants from Scotland - Highland and Island Gaels in particular. There’s even a residential Gaelic College on Cape Breton at St Ann’s. This Gaelic heritage creeps into the song ‘When First I Came To Caledonia’, which I heard first at a session on Edinburgh’s Tron Bar in the late 90s. The singer was a local session legend from Tyneside called Clive Powell. Clive often seemed to be in a state of half sleep meets reverie, curled up and nodding like the Tea Party Dormouse, while fiddles blazed around him, but he could bolt instantaneously awake and cast his reedy, sinewy voice into the noisy basement pub - and silence it - in any nanosecond gap that appeared between the gutsy instrumental sets that the Tron was famed for. Some of the place names he sang about - Scaterie and Boularderie - were unfamiliar to my ear. “It’s from Cape Breton Island”, he said, somewhere I’d only vaguely heard of. “Go and find Norma Carthy’s version”. So, I borrowed the eponymous and rather magnificent 1994 Waterson-Carthy album from the music department of Edinburgh Central Library (ah, those pre-streaming days), and in due course found the gorgeous version by the late Tony Cuffe (he went rather than came), which so helped to bring it back into modern folk repertoire. 
Both Tony and Norma, it turns out, had picked it up from a book called ‘Songs and Stories from Deep Cove, Cape Breton’ by Ambrose Thomas. The Caledonia of the title is not Scotland itself, but what was the New Caledonia mine at Glace Bay on the east side of Cape Breton. The song’s protagonist is a former miner there, now scrabbling with his brother to survive “spearing eels in the month of April and starving slaves down on Scaterie” (Scaterie island is now an uninhabited Wilderness Reserve off the coast near Main-à-dieu). The pair of them are so poor they can’t afford even bare essentials at the local boarding house & store run by ‘Donald-Norman’. Norma’s singing suggests they try unsuccessfully to buy shoes (‘brogan’ in the sleeve notes) though it's almost certainly the much more modest and everyday ‘brochan’ that they’re after - Gaelic for porridge.
It seems likely that Donald-Norman was a real figure, Donald Norman Macdonald, who did indeed run a lodging house at Glace Bay in the early to mid 20th century. There’s a wonderful wee online essay that unpicks more of the details over at ‘The Lost World of Cape Breton Island’.
Donald-Norman’s daughter (in reality, Sadie Macdonald) is the love interest in ‘When First I Came To Caledonia’ - a “maid from Boularderie, over”. My kids’ grandparents live in the middle of a pine forest on Boularderie, an island nestled within Cape Breton Island, overlooking Lake Bras D’Or. It’s where their dad grew up - and it’s beautiful.  Back in the Tron Bar, hearing Clive Powell sing, I didn’t know any of this. It’s a song that’s become personal. Hope you enjoy it. And happy birthday to both Grandma Jo and Granny too - my lovely mum, Anne - who share the same birthday.
FEATHER & ETHER SOLO TOUR I start on solo tour today. First three gigs are all in Scotland and have a wee bit of room for you if you fancy? After that, I’m taking an extended break from conventional touring beyond a handful of dates already in the diary (below) and a short theatre run at the Fringe in August (more on that next time). I’ll be writing and researching and walking and working in quieter and less visible ways because that’s what I need right now, and the universe is offering support to give that a go.
DICK GAUGHAN R/EVOLUTION KICKSTARTER 
I’ve written many times in these missives about my respect for the magnificent musician Dick Gaughan. He’s been a beacon for me for his music, his politics and ethics and his personal support and generosity. Since experiencing a stroke nine years ago, Dick’s been unable to work and things have been extremely tough on his health, family and finances. So I’m delighted to support a wonderful Kickstarter fund for R/evolution - an 8 CD box-set of unreleased material from the prime of his career. Massive thanks to Belfast writer Colin Harper for his labours in steering this treasure of a project. Find out more here. Thanks as ever for your support. Karine x
PS join me on SUBSTACK - my new social platform of choice - It offers a wee bit more room to write and lots more photos in between too!
LIVE 2025
KARINE POLWART SOLO
APR 24 ABERDEEN TIVOLI THEATRE TICKETS
APR 25 STIRLING ALBERT HALLS TICKETS
APR 26 DUMFRIES EASTERBROOK HALLS TICKETS
APR 27 BUXTON PAVILION ARTS LAST TICKETS
APR 28 CANTERBURY GULBENKIAN ARTS CENTRE TICKETS
APR 30 POCKLINGTON SOLD OUT
MAY 01 OXFORD SOLD OUT
MAY 02 LEEDS HOWARD ASSEMBLY ROOMS LAST TICKETS
MAY 03 BERWICK ON TWEED THE MALTINGS LAST TICKETS
KARINE POLWART BAND
AUG 01 BELLADRUM TARTAN HEART FESTIVAL TICKETS
AUG 05 GLASGOW SUMMER NIGHTS AT THE BANDSTAND TICKETS
SPELL SONGS
MAY 16 SHEFFIELD OCTAGON SOLD OUT
MAY 17 GATESHEAD THE GLASSHOUSE TICKETS
MAY 18 EDINBURGH USHER HALL LAST FEW TICKETS 
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