Jack was going to do a different guest post, but news intervened – – –
One of the founding members of my old Scottish folk band ‘Heritage’ was Lindsay Porteous. Like most of us, he didn’t read music – he played by ear. But he heard things differently from the rest of us. When he played what would traditionally be considered rhythmic instruments, he would play melody on them—on jaw harps, for instance. His main instruments were the jaw harp, the mouth bow and various whistles and drums. With these he added a very particular dimension to our overall sound.
I often described him as the only true ‘folk musician’ in the band. If he had been a painter, he would have been called a ‘naïve artist.’
Lindsay lived in the Tron House in Culross, Fife, and he built an amazing collection of musical instruments, old medicine bottles, and all sorts of other things. His house featured in many TV series and movies, including Outlander and any others that required a 17th century setting.
He was friendly with, and appreciated by, many of the most revered Scottish folk musicians and became a close associate of the wonderful storyteller and singer Duncan Williamson. His jaw harp prowess resulted in an all-expenses paid trip to judge the jaw harp competition at Grandfather Mountain highland games in North Carolina some years ago, when he was able to visit his own mouth bow hero, Jimmy Driftwood.
He also traveled all over Europe with ‘Heritage,’ and there are many stories of his adventures in Italy, France, Germany, and Switzerland. One of our favorites is when his mother* packed him tuna sandwiches for a trip that provided us food money, so he didn’t eat them for five days. When he started to open the Tupperware (in our close and crowded van), we shrieked, “No Lindsay! It’s too late!”
He smiled and pointed to the words on the edge of the plastic box. “It’s okay, lads. This says it keeps food fresh for up to six days.” We cursed Lindsay and the smell all the way to our next gig.
It was Lindsay who introduced ‘Heritage’ to Ian Green of Greentrax Records which, in a convoluted way, eventually led to our final album on Robin Morton’s Temple label. Robin knew Lindsay from his time as a member of the ‘Boys of the Lough,’ when they almost included him on their first album playing jaw harp.
I stayed in touch with Lindsay until recently, and he frequently sent me CDs of his favorite music. But the most anticipated posts were his Christmas letters. Where others glorified their stories, Lindsay reveled in doom and gloom newsletters relating the various disasters of his year. Our favorite quote, one Wendy and I often said to each other in moments of peril or uncertainty, was “My sister’s house is sinking down a mine shaft. The council don’t think they can save it.”
I can only imagine what his newsletter would have said this year – – –
Probably he would be describing his arrival at the ceilidh in heaven with Mike Mustard, Jimmy Dunn, Mike Ward, Davy Lockhart, Alan MacDonald, and Dominique LaLaurie. Dominique was the French lassie who played bagpipes with Heritage whenever we went to France, and we were all in love with her, Lindsay most of all. Now he can twang along again in the heavenly choir.
*Lindsay’s mother Nora deserves her own blog post, which I will get to in coming months. A fabulous lady, she studied at the prestigious Slade School of Art in London and lived a life worthy of its own book—not to mention looking after Lindsay, who was autistic.
Wendy Welch: Books, Yarn, Cats, Opioids 