Video: Musical Allesters
Sources: Interviewee: Isabelle Ouelette Photographs: Ladysmith Archives. Music: played by Nick Longo. The Bluebells of Scotland was written by Dora Jordan, and published in 1801. Video produced by TAKE 5 Print & Digital Media
Date:2018
Isabelle Ouelette interviews Val Galvin about her family and Ladysmith’s music scene in the early 1900s.
[Val Galvin sits at a desk with an open case holding a violin and bows.]
[V.G.] So this is Grandpa Allestair’s violin. And here there’s a couple of bows in here. So anyways, it has the neat, this is a new bow. This is the old bow, but this one’s got the hairs on it. What did they call it? Obviously I’m not a, so this is just kind of fun.
[Val pulls up the violin, unwrapping it.]
So this is Grandpa Allestair’s old silk hanky. I just love this. Whoops, here we are. So he always had it wrapped in here. I took it to Mr. Mills, who was a gentleman who lived in Saltair at the time, and he built violins, and he took this whole violin all apart and added little bits of wood and, I mean, I can’t even imagine the hours.
[Isabelle Ouelette] So what’s the date in the beginning? Do you remember?
[V.G.] It was in the 1800s.
[Slide show of photographs of musical venues in Ladysmith, 1900s.]
[V.G.] He was playing at dances and at, at halls and it wasn’t like, you know, a, a fine piece of musical instrument. It probably was; it was a utility violin. I’m sure it wasn’t for like sitting with the symphony.
[Val reads from an old sheet of paper,]
[V.G.] First page of Highland Wreath, and then My Love Is But a Lassie, My Love Is But A Lassie, and the Blue Bells of Scotland.
And then we go like this.
[Val pretends to play the violin,]
[Music Plays The Bluebells of Scotland]
[slide show images of early musicians from Ladysmith]
[V.G.] So that’s the story of the violin.
[Music]
[Black & White photograph of band members]