Common Ground Scotland 2003
A personal review from one of our participants.published in The Living Tradition magazine. Photographs from 2004 - Photos 2004 - Page 1 - Photos 2004 - Page 2

Some time in the course of this remarkable week a friend invited me to tell him what Winnie the Poo and Attila the Hun had in common? While you consider the improbability of their being any possible connection then how about an immediate decision on what Martin Luther King and Rabbie Burns have in common. Divided by almost two hundred years, the width of the Atlantic and race and culture, it would be so much easier to spot the differences and yet there is that instant intuitive feeling that there is something here worthy of at least a little exploration.

The connection is certainly not one that I would instantly have made. It could only have been engendered as the fruit of some-else's imagination and that is precisely why so many people made the journey to Ayr on 3rd August and stayed around till the 10th. Some caught the germ of an idea though there were others who were just attracted by the music. For my own part, I have been to many Summer Schools and Festivals, though never consecutively, but have never come away so fulfilled and uplifted by the totality of the experience quite like this one achieved. Tired? Yes! Exhilarated? Without a doubt!

I speak deliberately about the totality of the experience because the whole turned out to be exponentially greater than the sum of its considerable parts. Writing less than a week removed from the experience, the boundaries between the tutorials, the late night sessions, the seminars, the presentations, the concerts, the slow jams, the meals, the walk, the pub session and the off site events, are all blurred. I can only guess that this is as a result of there being a deliberate attempt to remove barriers and boundaries. Two days in, it would have been difficult for a stranger to have spotted the difference between tutors and tutored outside the formal situation. The week became increasingly about a quite disparate group of people, coming together to share a common interest in music that was, with remarkable ease, seeking and finding a common humanity. The music was the excuse that became the catalyst.

I can look to other similar experiences of community where people with a very strong particular commitment came together for common purpose and enjoyed the temporary pleasure of their own kind, and, a particularly insular sense of community. The Common Ground experience was unique in that, although there was a common interest in music, it was the kind of common interest that ranged from Margaret Bennett and Maggie MacInnes from the Gaelic tradition to the remarkable Fraser Spiers' bluesy harmonica playing. And that was only the Scottish element, not forgetting the wonderfully incongruous Burns Supper and a Ceilidh in a heat wave. Throw in the banjo playing Brian Connolly from Belfast and the powerful ballad singing of Donal McGuire from further south in Ireland and then add Chris Foster of the West Country drawl and the amazing guitar technique who had no need to describe himself as "the token Englishman". Long before the end of the week he was one of "us" whatever "us" meant by then. Oh and then there was the self-effacing and charmingly exquisite Bára Grimsdottir from Iceland who warmed from a hesitating introductory set to a rousing Icelandic drinking song that somehow required no translation by Sunday night.

And, there was the American contingent. Well there was indeed an American contingent of the kind that should be at the forefront of its government's current imperialistic drive. Led by Walt Michael, the original dreamer who conceived the notion of 'Common Ground on the Hill' nine years ago, they included a core group of musicians who embraced a range from Appalachian traditional ballads, through the blues guitar of Harry Orlove, to the amazing Gospel singing of Lea Gilmore. And, can there be two more accomplished accompanists than Rick Lee on keyboards and Jim Bienemann on bass? These are the ambassadors that their country desperately needs at present.

Well, having listed that impressive gathering of musical talent, it would be tempting to forget that there was more to Common Ground that just the music and more to our transatlantic contingent than musicians. In Dr Pam Zappardino and Dr Charlie Collyer they included two academics deeply committed to spreading the word on "Nonviolence". I can almost hear you ask where they were when their country needed them? 'Voices' and 'wilderness' come to mind as does 'prophets' and 'own land'.

For those of us (and not only the musically challenged) privileged to attend, their morning seminars offered a dimension not available at any other similar event. If you have just spotted the first Martin Luther King allusion then just hang in there but only if you can claim to spot the significance of the missing hyphen. "Non-violence" with the hyphen would have a negative spin that would certainly fail to do justice to the positive work and philosophy of Dr King that Pam and Charlie promote.

Their presentation, illustrated in the best pedagogical fashion with documentary video footage of the original Civil Rights campaigns, demonstrated the radical alternative to discrimination, oppression, conflict and, so topically, war. For participants like Karl Dallas, fresh from human shield activity in both Palestine and Iraq, and others who lived through the enlightened optimism of the 1960s (was it really just a mirage?) the knowledge that the spirit of the age, so wonderfully captured in the Kingian memories, was not dead, was in itself an opportunity to bond to the timelessness of the shared ideology of our youth.

So it wasn't all about music but we did acknowledge and celebrate the bonding capacity of song that everyone from King David of Old Testament fame [Psalm 98 "Sing a new song."] to every football fan ["You'll never walk alone..."] on the planet would acknowledge.

The dream behind Common Ground Scotland comes from Pete and Heather Heywood's contact with Walt Michael and Common Ground on the Hill in Maryland which in Walt's own words: "Is a traditional music and arts organization whose purpose is to offer quality learning (artistic) experiences . while exploring cultural diversity in search of a "common ground" among ethnic, gender, age, and racial groups., we find that what we have in common with one another far outweighs our differences. Our common ground is our humanity, often best expressed in our music, our art, our dance and even our language.

There simply cannot be a single soul out there who is not yet aware that the society, in which we live, on whatever part of this shrinking planet we inhabit, is being torn and driven apart. Tommy Truesdale, Chair of Common Ground Scotland, tellingly aligned his organisation with the Maryland dream and mentioned the plight of asylum seekers in our own society, which has "legitimised structures which creates conditions for prejudice and intolerance". The need to reconnect at all levels is the single greatest challenge facing any community and while there is general agreement about this analysis, there are depressingly few suggestions about an antidote.

The American sociologist Robert D. Putnam, in his seminal book "Bowling Alone" (2000) deals with this problem and challenges those who share his concern: "To build bridging social capital requires that we transcend our social and political and professional identities to connect with people unlike ourselves." (p411) Social capital for Putnam is what gives value to a society or community just as money offers financial capital. He distinguishes between the 'bonding' kind that binds communities together and the 'bridging' kind that goes outwards towards a wider society that seeks and develops common ground.

The real challenge of Common Ground and the "x" factor in its success, I suspect, lies in its innate capacity to build unlikely bridges with a seductive promise that it is an idea in its infancy. Every big idea owes much of its greatness to its timing. It arrives just when conditions are most ripe for its reception. While it can be persuasively argued that there has never been a time when the human race did not need to seek common ground, there is just that feeling, because of the global dimension and the capacity for devastation, that this is an idea that has found its time. The fact that the critical transatlantic coalition that conceived this wonderful venture is precisely the same one that is at present so politically discrediting to its common cultural humanity, is as poignant as it gets.

If however there was ever any doubt that music binds together but also uplifts, then step forward the Gospel Diva, Lea Gilmore. There was simply no one who better embraced the spirit of Common Ground more than the effervescent, dynamic and energetic Lea Gilmore. This was music and personality in overdrive. Singing solo or as part of Sangmele or performing the musical equivalent of 'silk purses out of sows ears' in training a Scottish Gospel Choir fit to perform in public in a total rehearsal time of two and a half hours, she was immense. Such a musical experience could cut waiting lists in the health service overnight. This was so therapeutic but, more importantly; it offered the kind of insight into another culture that can only come from participation. It was a cultural sharing that went far beyond enjoyment and musical fulfilment. It was a blessing and gift from a talent so freely shared.

You can just tell that I could go on. I could focus on the rare talent of Adam McNaughtan singing 'Hamlet' under the turrets of Kilmarnock's own Elsinore, Dean Castle. I could luxuriate in the seductive fiddle tone of Pete Clark and his musical journey through the life and music of Neil Gow. I could speak of the joy of walking the banks of the River Ayr and the welcoming pint, the plate of stovies and the indoor and outdoor sessions at the Stair Inn. I could warm to recalling the infectious warmth and grace of Alison McMorland and Geordie McIntyre and the understated charm of Maggie MacInnes' clarsach and song and Margaret Bennett's scholarly absorption of a folklore that cascades so gently into either the formal or informal performance. I could marvel at the Celtic 'Supergroup' 'Quad Rua' that bridged the Irish Sea in search of their own common ground and I could simply list all the people who attended and joined a tireless committee in making this so memorable that only disease, pestilence or mortality will get between me and next year's Common Ground Scotland.

But to return to Martin and Rabbie; do I really need to go further than to juxtapose: "I have a dream that one day little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. we will be able to work together, pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together to stand for freedom together. (We) will join hands and sing. (Martin Luther King, August 1963) And "Then let us pray that come it may, (As come it will for a' that,) That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, Shall bear the gree, an' a' that. For a' that an' a' that, It's coming yet for a' that, That Man for Man, the world o'er, Shall brothers be for a' that." (Rabbie Burns)

In a delightful cameo performance Wendy Welch, storyteller (an American with the good sense to marry Fife's Jack Beck) concluded a compelling story about a battle in which the last surviving protagonists simply could not even attempt to kill because "it is impossible to kill someone if you know their story." To all the people who shared their stories in the search for common humanity in a wonderfully warm summer at Auchincruive, I shall be forever indebted. Martin Luther King was inspired to a large extent by Ghandi who shall have the last word: "I believe that the sum total of the energy of mankind is not to bring us down but to lift us up.. You must never despair of human nature." M. K. Ghandi

Nearly forgot: 'Winnie the Poo' and 'Attila the Hun' share the same middle name.

Willie Slavin