James Henry Miller, better known by his stage name Ewan MacColl, was an English folk singer-songwriter, folk song collector, labour activist and actor. Born in England to Scottish parents, he is known as one of the instigators of the 1960s folk revival as well as for writing such songs as "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Dirty Old Town".
"Scarborough Fair" is a traditional English ballad. The song lists a number of impossible tasks given to a former lover who lives in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. The "Scarborough/Whittingham Fair" variant was most common in Yorkshire and Northumbria, where it was sung to various melodies, often using Dorian mode, with refrains resembling "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme" and "Then she'll be a true love of mine." It appears in Traditional Tunes by Frank Kidson published in 1891, who claims to have collected it from Whitby.
"Lord Randall", or "Lord Randal", is an Anglo-Scottish border ballad consisting of dialogue between a young Lord and his mother. Similar ballads can be found across Europe in many languages, including Danish, German, Magyar, Irish, Swedish, and Wendish. Italian variants are usually titled "L'avvelenato" or "Il testamento dell'avvelenato", the earliest known version being a 1629 setting by Camillo il Bianchino, in Verona. Under the title "Croodlin Doo" Robert Chambers published a version in his "Scottish Ballads" (1829) page 324.
Margaret "Peggy" Seeger is an American folk singer and songwriter. She has lived in Britain for more than 60 years and was married to the singer-songwriter Ewan MacColl until his death in 1989.
Ceilidh Culture is an annual festival held in Edinburgh, Scotland which incorporates folk music, song, dance and storytelling. There is currently a month-long programme of events which take place around Easter time. The current format first took place in 2003, although Edinburgh has had a festival with traditional ceilidh music also involving all the traditional arts since 1951.
Thomas Stephen Chalmers was a Scottish footballer who played as a centre-forward and spent the majority of his career with Celtic. He is the club's fifth-highest goalscorer with 236 goals and is considered one of their greatest players. He is particularly known for scoring the winning goal in the 1967 European Cup Final against Inter Milan. Chalmers later played for Morton and Partick Thistle. He also represented Scotland five times in international matches.
Bill Leader is an English recording engineer and record producer. He is particularly associated with the British folk music revival of the 1960s and 1970s, producing records by Paddy Tunney, Davey Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Frank Harte and many others.
Dominic Behan was an Irish writer, songwriter and singer from Dublin who wrote in Irish and English. He was also a socialist and an Irish republican. Born into the literary Behan family, he was one of the most influential Irish songwriters of the 20th century.
Isla Cameron was a Scottish-born, English-raised actress and singer. AllMusic noted that "Cameron was one of a quartet of key figures in England's postwar folk song revival – and to give a measure of her importance, the other three were Ewan MacColl, A. L. Lloyd, and Alan Lomax". She was a respected and popular folk music performer through the 1950s and early 60s as well as appearing in several films; she focused almost exclusively on her acting career from 1966 onwards. Cameron provided the singing voice for actress Julie Christie's part in the hit 1967 film version of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, but changed career direction and became a film researcher in the early 1970s before her early death in a domestic accident in 1980. One of the traditional songs in her repertoire, "Blackwaterside", recorded by Cameron in 1962, was subsequently popularised by notable "next generation" U.K. folk music performers Anne Briggs, Bert Jansch and Sandy Denny.
"Hughie Graham" or "Hughie Graeme" is Child ballad number 191, Roud 84, existing in several variants. It was collected by Robert Burns. There is a printed version in the Bodleian Library under the title "The Life and Death of Sir Hugh The Grime". It is dated between 1672 and 1696. The Burns version was printed by James Johnson (engraver) in the Scots Musical Museum 1803. It is in volume 4 song no 303, pages 312 and 313. The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library lists several other versions in printed collections, including "Scottish Ballads" (1829) by Robert Chambers.
Alex Campbell was a Scottish folk singer whose nickname was 'Big Daddy'. He was influential in the British folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first folk singers in modern times to tour the UK and Europe. He was described by Colin Harper as a "melancholic, hard-travelling Glaswegian" and was known for his story-telling and singing
Matthew McGinn was a Scottish folk singer-songwriter, actor, author and poet. Born in Glasgow in 1928, McGinn was a prolific songwriter and is recognised as an influential figure in the British folk music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
"The Road to Dundee", or "The Road and the Miles to Dundee" is a traditional Scottish folk ballad.
"Ye Jacobites by Name" is a traditional Scottish folk song which goes back to the Jacobite risings in Scotland (1688–1746). While the original version simply attacked the Jacobites from a contemporaneous Whig point of view, Robert Burns rewrote it in around 1791 to give a version with a more general, humanist anti-war, but nonetheless anti-Jacobite outlook. This is the version that most people know today and has been performed and recorded by Scottish folk groups such as The Corries and The McCalmans
Ronald David Bell Mitchell Shade, MBE was a Scottish professional golfer.
Charles Exbrayat was a French fiction writer. He published over 100 novels and short stories, most of them humorous thrillers. They were very popular and a considerable number were turned into films.
Charles Roy Stuart-Vernon, Laird MacKinnon of Dunakin, was a prolific British writer. He wrote historical books and novels of diverse genres under various pseudonyms: Charles Stuart, Charles MacKinnon, Charles MacKinnon of Dunakin, C. R. MacKinnon of Dunakin, C. R. MacKinnon, Graham Montrose, Iain Torr, I. Torr, Vivian Stuart, Vivian Donald and Barbara Lynn.