Box and Fiddle
Year 19 No 07
April 1996
A Tribute to the Late John Mackie
by ?
Readers will be saddened to learn on Friday, 23rd February, of John Mackie of Meggatknowes, Yarrow, Selkirkshire.
John, who was 78 years young, was a doyen of the Accordion and Fiddle scene in Scotland and in recent years, had been particularly active as Secretary of the Yarrow A&F Club of which he was one of the founders. The Club was established mainly due to his enthusiasm in January, 1989, when the very first guest artiste was Bill Black and his Band, an association that has continued since the same Bill Black was the guest at the Club last month.
John would never have made claim to being a great accordionist himself, but his influence in encouraging the developing talents of others, particularly younger players, was immeasurable. Young players such as Lynne Bradshaw, Ian Lowthian and David Nisbet pay testimony to that.
After an active working life, John who had been a widower, retired to live in Yarrow with his second wife Margaret. He had long before this time made his mark on the Scottish music scene. A fair player himself, but hampered by a series of strokes which impaired the movement in his left hand, he was a personal friend of the Norwegian classical virtuoso Toralf Tollefson and was invited to write the obituary of the great man when he died last August.
John’s taste in music was not confined to traditional Scottish Country Dance music, but embraced classical, Continental and South American styles, as well as Gershwin, Oscar and Hammerstein and the like.
He will be sadly missed compering the Yarrow Club at the Gordon Arms, where he always had a joke to tell the audience, sometimes told with an Aberdonian accent no doubt picked up from his many conversations with Robbie Shepherd. John will also be sorely missed for his charitable work, whether it be in organizing charity concerts the Yarrow club frequently undertook, or busking in the streets of Selkirk in organized charity fund-raising events.
“The auld bugger is irreplaceable” said Harry Mitchell of the Gordon Arms, at which, one can hear John’s comment, “Ah don’t mind the bugger, but less ae the Auld.” Harry further stated that, “The Club would not have survived in the beginning, without john’s enthusiasm. He knew so many people who were prepared to travel vast distances to appear at the Club and it was always very evident, he was held in high esteem by those people.”
As a tribute to John, the Yarrow Club will henceforth be known as the Yarrow (John Mackie Memorial) A&F Club and a special trophy bearing his name will be annually contested for at the Perth Festival.
A native of West Lothian, John had lived in the same Water Board house, at Crosswood Reservoir on the Lang Whang for over 50 years, having succeeded his father as Reservoir Superintendent. He was well known in the scattered but close-knit community that lives in and around the Whang, a place of hill farms, conifer plantations, winter snows and the call of the curlew.
At the outbreak of the Second World War John served in the Royal Artillery before volunteering for the Commandos. He took part in the notorious Dieppe Raid where he was badly wounded, and thereafter spent the rest of the war as a Commando Instructor, during which time he put the famous war heroine Odette Churchill through her paces. Incidentally, he never went back to France, always saying when asked, that he didn’t like the reception he had received when he had been there.
John was a man of wide interests. A friend of the late Hugh MacDiarmid, John shared the poet’s socialist philosophy and was consistently riled by what he saw as capitalism’s excesses, particularly in recent years. His countless published letters in ‘The Scotsman’ and locally in ‘The Southern Reporter’ confirmed his status as an intellectual. He had an uncanny knack in conversation of making contentious remarks without causing offence and then often sat quietly in the background as others continued the debate he had stimulated. A great aficionado of Robert Burns, John traveled twice to Russia, helping to reinforce the links between the nations forged through Scotland’s national poet.
John Mackie was an extraordinary ordinary man. Unassuming and non-judgmental. He was simply a man most people intuitively liked. He will be sadly missed by his many friends.
News of John’s death was announced on Robbie Shepherd’s Sunday morning BBC Scotland Radio show. There was a large gathering for his funeral service in the main chapel at Mortonhall Crematorium on Wednesday, 28th February, 1996, when, at John’s own request, a tape of Tollefsen’s arrangement of ‘The Carnival of Venice’ was played.
John Mackie is survived by his wife, Margaret, and four step children.
by ?
Readers will be saddened to learn on Friday, 23rd February, of John Mackie of Meggatknowes, Yarrow, Selkirkshire.
John, who was 78 years young, was a doyen of the Accordion and Fiddle scene in Scotland and in recent years, had been particularly active as Secretary of the Yarrow A&F Club of which he was one of the founders. The Club was established mainly due to his enthusiasm in January, 1989, when the very first guest artiste was Bill Black and his Band, an association that has continued since the same Bill Black was the guest at the Club last month.
John would never have made claim to being a great accordionist himself, but his influence in encouraging the developing talents of others, particularly younger players, was immeasurable. Young players such as Lynne Bradshaw, Ian Lowthian and David Nisbet pay testimony to that.
After an active working life, John who had been a widower, retired to live in Yarrow with his second wife Margaret. He had long before this time made his mark on the Scottish music scene. A fair player himself, but hampered by a series of strokes which impaired the movement in his left hand, he was a personal friend of the Norwegian classical virtuoso Toralf Tollefson and was invited to write the obituary of the great man when he died last August.
John’s taste in music was not confined to traditional Scottish Country Dance music, but embraced classical, Continental and South American styles, as well as Gershwin, Oscar and Hammerstein and the like.
He will be sadly missed compering the Yarrow Club at the Gordon Arms, where he always had a joke to tell the audience, sometimes told with an Aberdonian accent no doubt picked up from his many conversations with Robbie Shepherd. John will also be sorely missed for his charitable work, whether it be in organizing charity concerts the Yarrow club frequently undertook, or busking in the streets of Selkirk in organized charity fund-raising events.
“The auld bugger is irreplaceable” said Harry Mitchell of the Gordon Arms, at which, one can hear John’s comment, “Ah don’t mind the bugger, but less ae the Auld.” Harry further stated that, “The Club would not have survived in the beginning, without john’s enthusiasm. He knew so many people who were prepared to travel vast distances to appear at the Club and it was always very evident, he was held in high esteem by those people.”
As a tribute to John, the Yarrow Club will henceforth be known as the Yarrow (John Mackie Memorial) A&F Club and a special trophy bearing his name will be annually contested for at the Perth Festival.
A native of West Lothian, John had lived in the same Water Board house, at Crosswood Reservoir on the Lang Whang for over 50 years, having succeeded his father as Reservoir Superintendent. He was well known in the scattered but close-knit community that lives in and around the Whang, a place of hill farms, conifer plantations, winter snows and the call of the curlew.
At the outbreak of the Second World War John served in the Royal Artillery before volunteering for the Commandos. He took part in the notorious Dieppe Raid where he was badly wounded, and thereafter spent the rest of the war as a Commando Instructor, during which time he put the famous war heroine Odette Churchill through her paces. Incidentally, he never went back to France, always saying when asked, that he didn’t like the reception he had received when he had been there.
John was a man of wide interests. A friend of the late Hugh MacDiarmid, John shared the poet’s socialist philosophy and was consistently riled by what he saw as capitalism’s excesses, particularly in recent years. His countless published letters in ‘The Scotsman’ and locally in ‘The Southern Reporter’ confirmed his status as an intellectual. He had an uncanny knack in conversation of making contentious remarks without causing offence and then often sat quietly in the background as others continued the debate he had stimulated. A great aficionado of Robert Burns, John traveled twice to Russia, helping to reinforce the links between the nations forged through Scotland’s national poet.
John Mackie was an extraordinary ordinary man. Unassuming and non-judgmental. He was simply a man most people intuitively liked. He will be sadly missed by his many friends.
News of John’s death was announced on Robbie Shepherd’s Sunday morning BBC Scotland Radio show. There was a large gathering for his funeral service in the main chapel at Mortonhall Crematorium on Wednesday, 28th February, 1996, when, at John’s own request, a tape of Tollefsen’s arrangement of ‘The Carnival of Venice’ was played.
John Mackie is survived by his wife, Margaret, and four step children.