To Donate follow this link https://jamiemacdougall.net/home I hope you enjoy this performance I filmed at the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh in July. Covid restrictions eased sufficiently for us to have access to one of Scotland’s most famous and historic venues, one that Sir Harry Lauder appeared in. I was due to perform Lauder down the road in Portobello to mark Scotland’s first Global Star on August 4th , his 150th birthday. The pandemic stopped that but it couldn’t stop us marking his big day in some other way. A huge effort from my friends and colleagues have brought this to you now. To Donate follow link above. Thank you and guid nicht!

Join Alistair Heather for Blether Wi Heather on Thurs 20th May at 7pm as he chats with fairmer and fitba commentator Allan Innes in the run up to #giesascotsphraseday on 4th June.

Join Alistair Heather for Blether Wi Heather on Thurs 13th May at 7pm as he chats with musician and activist Iona Fyfe in the run up to #giesascotsphraseday on 4th June.

In this session, Aberdeenshire poet and writer, Sheila Reid, performs her poem ‘Immigrant Scurries’. Sheila describes how she came to write in North-East Scots (Doric) and gives some context to the poem. She said, ‘I first began thinking that poetry could be truthful, popular and sophisticated when I read Philip Larkin and when I came back to Aberdeenshire in 1999, I discovered Flora Garry’s beautiful, lyrical verse in the Doric, but to my chagrin, some of the language was separated from me because it contained archaisms that I had to go to a Doric dictionary to access. I began writing poetry in English, but when I thought of writing about everyday life events, the spoken words, their rhythms and cadences, that came to mind were Doric. It is our familial language. ‘Immigrant Scurries’ is the result of my living on the seventh floor in a complex of flats where I look down on some extensive flat roofs. I began noticing the seagulls as they mated and nurtured their broods on the flat roofs and it occurred to me how different their behaviour was from the wildlife films I’d seen on nature programmes, or how I remember them from clifftop visits to the coast: they had adapted to a new environment, like any other immigrant. I first wrote the poem in English but when a friend alerted me to the Doric Slam, I changed its language to Doric.’ This video is part of the Elphinstone Sessions, a series of videos by the University of Aberdeen's Elphinstone Institute highlighting the culture and living traditions of the North-East of Scotland. For more information about the work of the Institute and our programmes of study, please visit www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone

This video is part of the Elphinstone Sessions, a series of videos by the University of Aberdeen's Elphinstone Institute highlighting the culture and living traditions of the North-East of Scotland. For more information about the work of the Institute and our programmes of study, please visit www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone On 21 February 2021, the Elphinstone Institute partnered with the Aberdeen Multicultural Centre to host their eighth International Mother Language Day event. Due the the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held online meaning that contributors had to pre-record their performances. We're delighted to be able to feature this poem as part of our Elphinstone Sessions series. This video features poet, Elizabeth Chrystall, who reads her own poem, 'Fa Wid A Thocht', a poem written especially for the day. She said, 'I’ve done the Doric part of IMLD for several years now. I started off singing Doric songs but it was always difficult getting someone to accompany me to keep me in tune so I started writing my own Doric poems...This one came about as we had been reminiscing at home about all the changes we’d seen in our lifetime.'