Chapter Ten

May and June 1974
In contrast to our visit to the Wheelers was that to the Fischers, three days later on Thursday. James and his wife Betsey were ten years older than we, really no older than the Wheelers, but worlds apart in terms of ambience. Their house – a stone-and-pine-built modern affair near the town hall – was very middle-class inside, with slipcovered club furniture, which George said reminded him very much of his parents' rectory. The food was plain middle class fare– they were not vegetarians- and the drugs of choice were good Scotch and plain old pipe tobacco. On the whole, it was a comfortable evening, like visiting with a favourite aunt and uncle. George and James talked and studied climbing routes for a while before they joined Betsey and me in the common room for a set of slides from their trip to the Tetons. While the men were off in the study, Betsey told me that she was a quilter, and was a member of the Tuesday evening quilting bee. It looked as if I was being cultivated for that, though I had not done much quilting. Shirley must have put the word round that I made 'fancy glass and art jewellery', so the assumption was I suppose natural that I quilted too.

During the general discussion of climbing that followed, I mentioned that I had been rock-climbing in the Shenandoah National Park when Betsey said that her father was from Afton, which is the nearest hamlet, and that when Dylan sang 'The Night They Drove old Dixie Down' she thought it was about her Grandfather, because he had been at the siege of Richmond also. This was all new to George, so I played it for him later, and sang it at Mosey's on the Friday night at the jam session when everyone was too full of JD's to be offended. Maggie and I were on banjo and mandolin and Joe to my surprise took up his harmonica as everyone sang:

Virgil Caine is my name and I worked on the Danville train
'Til Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again
In the winter of '65, we were hungry, just barely alive
On the tenth of May when Richmond fell
It was a time I remember, oh, so well

The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the bells were ringin'
The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the people were singin'
They went, "Na, na, na, na, na, na,.... "

'Back with my wife in Tennessee
And one day she said to me,
"Virgil, Come Quick and see!
There goes Robert E. Lee."
Now I don't mind I'm chopping wood
And I don't care if the money ain't good
You take what you need and leave the rest
But they should never have taken the very best


The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the bells were ringin'
The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the people were singin'
They went, "Na, na, na, na, na, na,..... "

Like my father before me, I'm a working man
And like my brother above me, I took a rebel stand
Oh, he was just 18, proud and brave
When a Yankee laid him in his grave
I swear by the blood beneath my feet
You can't raise a Caine back up when he's in defeat

The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the bells were ringin'
The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the people were singin'
They went, "Na, na, na, na, na, na,..... "'

'What was that about?' I asked Joe as we were collecting our gear. He gazed at me with a deep and wistful expression and said, 'I am from Tennessee, and we suffered mighty sorely during the war, and after. I am I guess what you would call a Cracker –'
I smiled a little. 'I have.'
He looked at his shoes, grinning, and looked over at Maggie, 'Well, shoot, it sure is true, and I don't mind saying it, not to you, because you know what it is and don't mind.... I feel every word of that song, and it's not nice to in some parts....' He paused. 'I hope you don't mind me saying it, but,' he coloured up delightfully, ' you remind me of ladies I grew up with. Proper ladies. '
I grinned now. 'Thank you, Joe. You're a real gentleman.'

As we were walking home it was George's turn to ask what was all that about with Joe. I had to smile. 'Oh, he was just telling me how that song meant so much to him, how he grew up poor in Tennessee. It's odd how folk music brings everyone together. I wonder if Betsey and Joe ever talked about being Southerners....' I paused, seeking an analogy. 'It's rather like being Irish, as compared to English.'
'Oh. I get it!' He laughed and put an arm about me. 'It's folk that bring folk together, you know, through the music. I was not impressed with your Dylan record. But when you sang it tonight and everyone joining in, I could feel the room change. Every man is an underdog against Big Brother, no matter where he's from, but you did that, in what you brought to it. You did it for Betsey, for her father; that made all the difference.'
He was right and it was something to think about, but not at nigh on one in the morning, lurching down a long hillside in the dark.

At the next Sunday jam session late in the evening when people were dancing, George led the jam in a beautiful slow air that folk could dance to, ‘Leaving Stornoway’, which he had learned from Andy at Findhorn, a sad sweet song about a soldier leaving his heart, and lady, while he goes to fight ‘across the sea.’ He was becoming known for romantic songs, aching ballads that left the companying sighing.

In the morning I must leave you, I must leave you far behind
Smile for me, and hide the sadness, drive tomorrow from your mind.
Far away the drums are beating, and I can no longer stay
But I leave my heart behind me, here with you in Stornoway.'

He glanced down at me here, with that deep slow look,
'Hold me close against your heart love, for tomorrow I must leave
Off to fight for King and Country, in a land across the sea
But I know when battle's raging, that my thoughts will always stray
To the love I leave behind me, here with you in Stornoway.

There was the long bridge of martial music, with Maggie and I making up for the lack of bagpipe and drum with pennywhistle and bodhran, and all the dancers swirling about beside us, and people standing staring with tears in their eyes, for the war in Viet Nam was still raging and not a person there didn't know someone who had suffered loss.
'And some day, if God should spare me, when the battles all are o'er
And we raise the flag of freedom I'll return to you once more
When the birds go winging homewards at the closing of the day
I'll return to spend my days love, here with you in Stornoway
I'll return to spend my days love, here with you in Stornoway

At the end of it, George leaned over and gave me a proper kiss, right there in front of everyone, which he was not wont to do, but it was for all the beautiful days we had spent at Findhorn, where these unbreakable depths of soul-knowledge of each other had been plumbed.

’Pure mastery,’ said Joe next to him in the interim, shaking his head. George looked up and shook the hair from his face. ‘The only bother is, I never get to dance with my girl.’
‘Where’d you learn it?’
A faint smile lingered about his eyes, ‘Findhorn.’
‘You talk about that place a lot.’
He smiled fully now. ‘It changed my life. Come over, I’ll tell you about it.’
‘I will,’ said Joe. We followed it up with a hornpipe, in the musician’s tradition, to bring up the mood of the company.

‘The School’, we discovered on our arrival at it to sign on as music teachers, was not a primary school with arty pretensions, but a serious Music and Arts boarding secondary school, very much in the manner of an English public school; the secondary equivalent of Juilliard. In fact, many of their graduates went on to Juilliard. There were also adult programmes, and a summer school, which had been the first incarnation of the place. They were delighted with George’s connection to the Royal College of Music and my own Juilliard sheepskin, and took us to meet the founders, Max Krone and his wife, Beatrice, who happened to be there for a board meeting.

The night before we had sat at the kitchen table, deciding how much hard money we actually needed to live on, all considered, and reckoned how much teaching music and making crafts would pay; we would work just enough and no more, freeing ourselves just to be and do whatever else we wanted. It worked out to about twelve hours a week, each, or two and a half hours a day.
‘That’s not too bad,’ George said. ‘I worked more at my job in Covent Garden.’
‘It is a very conservative estimate besides,' I said.
‘As it should be.’ He leaned back in the chair. 'Always best to err on the side of caution. If we have more money from other things, then we can put it to good use – give it to Oxfam or whatever it’s called here.’

It was so sweet; his utter rightness of heart and mind. Thought of him, arguing strongly with his father about the use and proper sphere of money. But George had lived on scholarships, at the Royal College and the Phil, working for the experience and the money it gave to finance his climbing jaunts. He was happier doing gigs with his early music consort, making instruments, and showing up for jam sessions at local pubs. And, if he was good at these things, and he was, why should he not make his living at them? Why should anyone not make their living at what they are truly good? Why should anyone slave away at a job they hated, just for the coin? That, he said, was a living death, and he would not do it. But, if he had extra money, he was always willing to give it away. We had a small amount of savings – enough for a few weeks. But our trust was in each other, and in the bountiful Universe; God always showed up with just enough at the right time. Who needed more than that? If the whole world lived this way, we’d all be happy. This was our ethos.

The Krones were glad to know us, and fascinated that George actually made instruments as well as played them.
‘We have need of such craftsmen,' he said. ‘There’s a fellow up on the ridge who makes guitars, Watson is his name, but if you can teach our kids and adults to make woodwinds and violins that would be a great boon.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Krone turned to me, 'and what about you, young lady? Aside from classical guitar, do you do anything else?’
‘Textiles, jewellery, and glass arts, sir,’ I said.
‘Well I’m dumbfounded that two you weren’t recruited from England, that you happened upon us; you sound just what we need.’ We hardly had 'happened upon them' , but it was as well to let them revel in the serendipity.
‘We’re happy to be here, sir.’ George said.
‘You must help us organise our next show,’ Bee said to me. ‘It’s after the summer school and before the Festival…. You are teaching at the festival, aren’t you?’
I admitted that I hadn’t thought of it. Workshops were given at the Whole Being weekend in September free of charge on a sign-up basis, very free-flow. It would be easy to arrange.

‘It looks as if we have to get to work,’ George said as we walked to the jeep. It was the first day of brilliant warm sunshine, now at the end of May. We stopped in town for an ice cream to celebrate, and when we got home he sat down on the floor in the common room with some blanks for recorders, while I went through my projects to decide which I should take to Maggie’s shop. The work kept us busy for a week, with time off for music in the evenings. The week after that, we began teaching at the summer school, three hours a day, five days a week, for six weeks.