We begin with THE DEAR GREEN PLACE, a song first recorded by Alan way back with Battlefield Band. it recounts the legend of Glasgow’s origins and its more recent industrial history. THE FINAL TRAWL is Archie Fisher’s fine elegy on the demise of the Scots fishing industry. GLESCA PEGGY (Child ballad 228) has a Glasgow lass abducted and taken to the north by her Highland captor/suitor who happily turns out to be both rich and generous. THE DROOKIT ROAD mixes Lowland Scots and English in its tale of regret. The popular Scots actor of yesteryear Roddy McMillan, added verses to I WILL GO, I WILL GO a song on the endless tribulations of the 18th. century Highland soldier. BY THE DRY CARDRONA was written by New Zealand poet James Keir Baxter and comes from a radio play (also a film) called Jack Winter’s Dreams: the play relates the story of an old prospector in the Depression years who has a dream about his young days in the gold fields (Scheelite incidentally is a component of tungsten and is found in the Otago mountains). LADY KILMARNOCK’S LAMENT is another song reprised by Alan, first recorded on a 1978 album Sidetracks (with Battlefield Band colleague BrIan McNeill) that was sadly deleted around 1984. The theme of THE ISLANDER is the conflicting pulls of the city and island and is followed by the well loved tune LEAVING LISMOR (Fàgail Liosmòr in Gaelic or ‘the great garden’). WILL YE GO TAE FLANDERS is another favourite traditional song with added verses by singer John Faulkner. Its anti-war message still resonates. BESS AND HER SPINNING WHEEL is a song composed by Robert Burns from a melody derived from the much older Cosen Cole’s Delight from the Playford Collection of 1700. It’s played here as an air before MARY SCOTT FLOWER OF YARROW, a melody dedicated to the 16th. century beauty who was also an ancestor of Sir Walter Scott (across the border it’s also known as Sir John Fenwick’s The Flower Among Them All.). THE GAMBLER is a warning to all smitten by the bug to desist and beware of false friends, We close with RUTHWELL, a reflective piece on a rare Anglo Saxon cross which is in a church in the village of Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire.