Tag Archives: Scottish folk music

A Journey With No End #8

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Jack & Wendy tie the knot with a little help –

The day arrived, and we arrived together from different directions – Wendy still sniffling but looking perfectly gorgeous!

Jan Miller had decorated the outside of the house with flowers and greenery, and our dear friend Jean Lockhart had organized all the food for afterwards. We had gotten the supplies of wine from a shop next to Jean’s house and had it stashed in the garage at the bottom of the garden so as not to offend Wendy’s parents.

Aileen Carr’s house was the venue, and she had turned it completely over to our use for the day.

The officiant clergy in charge was Linda Bandalier (American storyteller resident in Edinburgh), my best man was my musical buddy George Haig, and Wendy’s bridesmaid was Donna-Marie Emmert from Abingdon in Virginia (Aka the Haintmistress).

As we took our vows, I felt an enormous swell of support throughout the room, not least because of musical contributions from Jimmy Hutchison and Aileen’s group Palaver. Jimmy went to a lot of trouble to learn ‘Believe me if all those Endearing Young Charms’ specially at Wendy’s request, and the female unaccompanied quartet Palaver sang “My Love is like a Red Red Rose,” reflecting the invitations we had printed.

I was quite surprised at the turnout, which was a real mixture of family, musical folk, storytelling friends and colleagues of mine from the college where I worked. A hale clanjamphry, in fact!

Finally, we were off on our honeymoon to the Atholl Palace Hotel in Pitlochry, which was our base for a few days while we toured around the highlands. While there, the Omagh Bombing cancelled the storytelling festival in Ireland where Wendy had made new friends the previous year and who had come to the wedding.

When we returned, we got a message from Linda to say that one of our forms hadn’t been signed, and until it was, we weren’t married!

If Wendy’s parents and my mother had known, it would only have confirmed their worst suspicions – that we’d been living in sin all the time anyway – – –

A Journey With No End #7

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Jack comes to the finale in his pursuit of Wendy – –

Wendy arrived in Scotland on Friday, and we didn’t stop on the way home from the airport to get a kitten. We went to the shelter on Saturday, after she’d slept for 11 hours. Valkittie was four weeks old, tiny, jet black, and full of herself.  She traveled with us on our journeys and lived to the ripe old age of nineteen. She even signed the witness document with her pawprint a decade later, when we hosted a wedding in our bookstore!

But we were talking about our wedding: time to make some arrangements. Since most of our friends were either folkies or storytellers, we decided to marry on the Friday before the annual Auchtermuchty Folk Festival. August 14th to be precise (making this Monday past our 25th anniversary).

We approached the minister of the local ‘Muchty Presbyterian Church, and she was all for it; however, the governing kirk session said no because we didn’t live in the parish and weren’t members of the congregation. So our good friend Aileen Carr, who lived across the street from the church in a lovely old stone house, said “Have it here!”

Invitations went out, and Wendy’s parents arrived with brand new passports. We took them for a tour of the highlands, and we stayed overnight at the B&B of another friend, Doli McLennan, where she made sure we had adjoining rooms, much to Wendy’s mother’s chagrin.

Wendy would be staying with another friend just up the street from the wedding venue for the next few nights, but she had developed a dreadful cold. She went to the local pharmacy, and the guy on duty reached behind him and produced a brown bottle. “Take this before you go to bed tonight, lassie, and don’t drive in the morning,” he said – it was Codeine – – –

The day arrived and it was raining, but by the scheduled time the sun came out. Aileen’s house  looked lovely, not least because Wendy’s friend Mike had arrived at the last minute and ironed all the tablecloths.

How to explain Mike? When we got back from the Highlands, a message on our answering machine from Mike said, “Hey, I’m in the airport in Edinburgh. Where am I supposed to go?”

I expressed concern at one of her hapless American friends running around alone and unprotected, but Wendy smiled and waved a dismissive hand.

“Mike will show up the morning of the wedding, riding an elephant, fronting a brass band. He’s that guy.”

Actually, he showed up with the cocktail waitress from the bar he had closed the night before down in Dunfermline. He’d remembered that I lived there, but found a pub instead of my house, and a willing guide to get him to ‘Muchty…. who I’m sure was a nice lassie. She dropped him off and went back to her bartending duties—after making sure he had her phone number for after the nuptials.

Wendy’s bridesmaid, Donna-Marie, arrived from Virginia and also had adventures in the pubs of Dunfermline, as well as scaring a taxi driver who couldn’t find ‘Muchty.

Next week – the big day arrives – –