Truibhs – Friend Or Foe ?

[Lachlan09]

Thanks folks for your interesting replies and views. I have seen recent-ish photos of a Highland clan chief wearing tight trews (tight-fitting as British cavalry officers overalls) with plaid, dirk etc etc and he looked very smart indeed. I would certainly get a pair as well as kilt(s) if I wasn't so fat ! (OMG I used to be so slim as a younger man - 30 inch waist !). Nowadays when I go for a swim, I’m protected by a Greenpeace ship ! My goal, if I could afford it, would be kilts in Gow ancient (I have now), Hunting Gow (ancient), Clan Chattan (Gow membership – modern colours and a pair of sunglasses), MacPherson (red/blue etc –Gow is sept of MacPherson), Dress MacPherson (for my wife), MacNaughton (paternal grandma), Montgomery (maternal granddad), Clan Donnachaidh/Robertson (maternal grandma).

The avatar photo is of my ancestor (a relation, though not direct as in grandfather x 10 etc), Niel Gow (1727-1807), the Highland fiddler and composer of reels, airs, laments, strathspeys etc. He was born in the Highland village of Inver, Perthshire, near Dunkeld. His father was a tartan weaver, but Niel was taught the fiddle at a young age and entered competitions etc, developing his own unique playing style. There was a blind master fiddler, John MacCraw, who could recognise Niel’s playing instantly, as his downstrokes and upstrokes were equally powerful, whereas other players tended to have one stroke strong and the other weaker. He started composing and soon was sponsored by the Duke of Atholl. He became in demand and played for the well-to-do of Edinbugh etc. At one point, in 1745, he was commandeered/drafted into the Jacobite army, but melted away when an opportunity arose and the army moved on toward England.

In the following years, he became more famous and was became known by gentry in England, for whom he played concerts. Sir Henry Raeburn painted this portrait of Niel Gow in 1787, which I use for my avatar. My kilt is of similar sett to this. He habitually wore tartan trews and hose and plain coat. In all his years of fame, he was unaffected and plain-spoken and became a long-term friend of the Duke of Atholl, who often visited Niel at his cottage in Inver to get plain, country advice from a simple, plain, unassuming man who was not cow-towed by the nobility of his chiefly aristocratic mentor.

Robert Burns also met Niel Gow and admired him, his skills and his solid sense. Like Gow, Burns himself was also unimpressed by titles and advantages of birth and had the same pithy sense of humour. Agnes Lyon (1762-1840). wife of Dr Lyon, Minister of Glamis, put these words to Niel Gow’s composition “Niel Gow’s Fareweel to Whisky”.

Neil Gow's "Fareweel to Whisky"

Ye've surely heard o’ famous Neil,
The man that played the fiddle weel;
I wat he was a canty chiel.
An' dearly lo'ed the whisky, O.
An' aye sin he wore tartan hose,
He dearly lo'ed the Athole Brose;
An' wae was he, you may suppose,
To bid fareweel to whisky, O.

Alake, quo' Neil, I'm frail an' auld,
And find my bluid grows unco cauld,
I think it maks me blythe and bauld,
A wee drop Highland whisky, O.
But a' the doctors do agree
That whisky's no the drink for me;
I'm fleyed they'll gar me tyne my glee,
Should they part me and whisky, O.

But I should mind on 'auld lang syne',
How paradise our friends did tyne,
Because something ran in their min'-
Forbid, like Highland whisky, O.
While I can get both wine and ale,
And find my head and fingers hale,
I'll be content, though legs should fail,
And though forbidden whisky, O.

I'll tak my fiddle in my hand,
And screw the strings up while they stand,
And mak a lamentation grand
For guid auld Highland whisky, O!
O! a' ye pow'rs o music, come.
I find my heart grows unco glum;
My fiddlestrings will hardly bum
To say, 'Fareweel to whisky, O'.

Niel begat children, who displayed varying levels of musical skills, the most famous being Nathaniel (1766-1831), who went on to become an even more famous player and composer than his father. Nathaniel was the darling of the London Caledonian set and played for all the high-society balls and parties at a time when all things Highland became the “in-thing”.

An gravestone epitaph was penned for Niel Gow which goes:-

“Time and Gow are even now,
Gow beat time, now time’s beat Gow”

My Gow’s are the same Perthshire lot ! My direct family ancestors are buried in Blair Atholl, near the Duke of Atholl’s Blair Castle and some are in Dalnaspidal and Dalwhinnie, a wee bit up the Inverness road on the Perthshire/Inverness-shire border.

My great-granddad, from Dalnaspidal, was a deerstalker for the Duke of Atholl and a member of his Atholl Highlanders, my granddad, also from Dalnaspidal, was a gamekeeper in Perthshire, then after service in the 6th Black Watch/ 51st Highland Division in WW1, became a gamekeeper in Cowal and later Kintyre, both in Argyll. He retired to Kirkmichael, Perthshire, near Blairgowrie/Pitlochry etc. My dad was born in Tighnabruaich, Argyll and raised in Kintyre.