In summer 2021, Hamish Napier and I dreamed up Storylands Sessions. It has grown into the most extraordinary community celebration of tunes, tales, poetry, song, visual art and even the occasional eruption of dance. I have loved it!

LOVED…

* my colleagues – who have grown to a team of five now including Jacky Pankhurst, Aila Schafer and Barry Reid

* the faithful team of volunteers, whose number is legion and gifts so valuable

* the performers – from seasoned professionals to children playing in public for the first time (o my heart!)

* the creativity and sharing – stories that have captivated me, music that has swept me away, poems that have made me cry, art that has left me speechless, dancing that has left me breathless!

* the precious people who gathered in the writing workshops. As one participant wrote at our last one, on the theme of Fire: together “We have made a hearth”

* the warm, generous and supportive space that the whole Sessions community has created. I often said to people, ‘I can’t tell you how much I love this project.’

Here’s an Instagram reel I created to celebrate all these wonderful people, and some specific thanks in my post on  Facebook. And just a few photos below, most of the good ones taken by Robert Paisley

So, it is with considerable heartache, therefore, that I have taken the very difficult decision to step back from the team. Our Dec 2025 show was my last ‘on staff’. (Scroll on down to see the farewell song I wrote and performed at that show, All For You.)

Storylands Sessions will continue in the capable hands of everyone else, and I’ll still be there, but just as another enthusiastic member of the community.

I need time for family and to write. (Significant things coming up on both fronts, so follow my monthly newsletter to be on the inside lane.)

For now, I celebrate what a rare and precious thing Storylands Sessions is. In a time when megalomaniacs and their machines seem hell-bent on destroying the Earth and all its creatures, this gathering of souls is an act of brave resistance. When we come together sharing the work of our human hands, our voices and our hearts, we prove that goodness is stronger than evil. How amazing are the combined powers of community, creativity and cake!

They bring out the best in us; they show us that the world – even in its suffering – remains bright and beautiful, and that we – even in our struggles – can love one another and know joy.

All for You

And here’s my song, All for You, accompanied here by Hamish Napier, December 2025. The lyrics are below the video.

All for You

– Merryn Glover, Dec 2025

Every time you come into this place
I can see the joy light up your face
And I know there’s a story there for us
There’s a smile for you at the open door
And a space for you to take the floor
Where you will shine like the stars

Chorus:

It’s all for you, all for you
It’s all for you, all for you
Every word we say, Everything we do
Every tune we play, Every story true
It’s all for you

An old man reads a poem for the very first time
Gives voice to his heart in a sweet old rhyme
And the words keep speaking even when he’s gone
For out in the cold and the dark of night
We carry with us the unfailing light
Of hope for the day that is to come

Chorus

There’s a song I heard you sing one day
That caught us up and swept us away
Your voice that made us cry out Amen!
I remember the time you took a chance
And let down your hair to get up and dance
So we can be children once again

Chorus

A young girl plays a tune with shaking hands
The whole room opens and understands
How brave it is sometimes to truly give
But only in love for the world out there
Will we find our hearts have room to spare
And this is how we’re meant to live

Chorus

Do you know it’s okay to come when it’s tough
When the wind is cold and the way is rough
‘Cause we will listen to your tears
For when it’s hard to lift your eyes
We have wings to help you rise
And fly you higher than your fears

Chorus

In a New Light is a tapestry of words, images and sound about the Cairngorms. The warp is Merryn’s book, The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd; the weft is Hamish’s music, weaving in and out through the narrative. Together, they are set against images of this landscape and its life, mostly taken by Merryn. The show title reflects how both artists explore the Cairngorms, always seeking fresh perspectives, surprising discoveries and more ways of seeing old ground in A New Light.

The show premiered at the inaugural Cairngorms Nature Festival in May 2023, with support from the Cairngorms National Park. It then toured to the Edinburgh International Book Festival 22nd Aug, the Badenoch Heritage Festival, 19th Sept, the Plenty? Festival in Banchory, 6th October and the Paisley Book Festival on 26th April 2024. We are always eager to find new audiences for this performance, so if you would like to invite us, please contact Merryn here.

You can watch a beautiful recording of the whole performance at EIBF by following this link.

See below for full information and credits for the music, field recordings and images from the show.

Music

The music through the show is all played live by award-winning folk musician, multi-instrumentalist and composer Hamish Napier. Some pieces are traditional tunes of the Cairngorms while others are his own compositions. All his music is available to buy in CD or download here.

Music, in the order played in In a New Light:

SLOW AIR: Meall a Bhuachaille [The Shepherd’s Hill] – Hamish Napier

A popular hill in Strathspey, looking towards the Cairngorm plateau. Listen here.

9/8 MARCH: St Finan’s of Kinlochmoidart – Hamish Napier

Composed on site in the church very recently. Watch here.

STRATHSPEY: South of the Grampians – James A Porteous (1762-1847)

Found in James Scott Skinner’s Harp & Claymore Collection. See the sheet music here.

STRATHSPEY: The Forest of Gaick – William Marshall (1748–1833)

The Forest of Ga-ick was a deer estate near Glen Feshie, owned by the Duke of Gordon. Marshall was Steward of the Household and an excellent shot. Learn more about the tune here.

SLOW THEME: The Wells of Dee – Hamish Napier

The Wells of Dee are the source of the River Dee on Braeriach in the high Cairngorms. Listen here.

WALTZ: The Dance – Hamish Napier

From his debut solo album The River. Listen here.

SLOW AIR: Farewell tae a Buchan Loon –  Hamish Napier

Commissioned for Frances Argo in memory of her son Martin. Listen here.

REEL: Druimuachdar [Drumochter] – Trad 

From The Simon Fraser Collection, also called Highland Road to Inverness. Learn more here.

SONG: Allt an Lochain Uaine [Burn of the Green Lochan] – Uilleam Ruigh ‘n Uidhe [William Gow/Smith]

Attributed to legendary 18th century Cairngorms deer stalker and Gaelic bard William Gow of Rynuie (Uilleam Ruigh ‘n Uidhe). To the north of Derry Lodge and Derry Dam, the Lochan Uaine is in a high corrie to the west. This is where Uilleam Ruigh ‘n Uidhe wrote a poem which later became the well-known song “Allt an Lochain Uaine”. The melody was used for the even more popular song Mo Chalian Dillias Donn [My Faithful Brown Haired Girl] by Hector MacKenzie from Loch Broom.  Learn more here and see the Gaelic version with English translation here.

SLOW AIR: Before the Sun Comes – Hamish Napier

One of the finale tracks on Duncan Chisholm’s much acclaimed new album Black Cuillin. Listen here.

SLOW AIR: N Carn gorm [Cairngorm Mountain] – Trad

From The Simon Fraser Collection: The Airs and Melodies Peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland and the Isles. Learn more here.

THEME: Craobh Phillidh [The Tree of the Return] – Hamish Napier

From The Woods, about the tree marking the upper limit of Rothiemurchus forest. Listen here.

THEME: The Tree of Blessings – Hamish Napier

From The Woods, about the juniper tree. ‘I run my hand through juniper… for the joy of the wet drops trickling over the palm.’ Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain. Listen here.

FIELD RECORDINGS

Helen Needham & Hamish Napier – mainly recorded in the Cairngorms

IMAGES

All images and video in In a New Light are by Merryn Glover except for:

• Title image of Hamish and Merryn: Michael George for National Geographic
• Nan Shepherd in her 80s: Erlend Clouston
• Nan Shepherd and family: Nan Shepherd Estate, photographer unknown
• Nan Shepherd walking: Nan Shepherd Estate, photographer unknown
• Cairngorms from Loch Morlich: William Lamond Howie, 1902, Scottish Mountaineering Club Image Archive
• Merryn as a child with family: Warren Glover
• Blue tit: Duncan Macdonald
• Ptarmigan & crested tit: Mark Denman
• Swifts & golden plover: J Hope, Speyside Wildlife
• Lapwings, curlews, osprey & Slavonian grebe: Wendy Hamlet
• Other images of Merryn: Alistair Appleby

‘To know Being, this is the final grace accorded from the mountain.’

Nan Shepherd

Setting up a new event is like taking a running jump off a pier. You don’t know if the water’s going to be freezing, or tangled with seaweed or possibly even infested with sharks. But you just have to do it. Even in time of covid when the complications are multiplied and people are afraid. Especially in time of covid.

And so it was that musician Hamish Napier and myself took the plunge with The Storylands Sessions in September. It’s a new series of events in Badenoch, the lesser-known cousin of Strathspey, higher up the legendary river. Meaning ‘the drowned lands’ in Gaelic, this beautiful floodplain between the Cairngorms and the Monadhliaths is a rich source of stories, from Pictish battles to Jacobite strongholds, the Ossian epic to the Wolf of Badenoch.

It has led to a new name for the area, ‘The Storylands’, in a drive to celebrate its unique heritage. But the stories are not just from the past. Like the Spey, they loop and flow on down the generations, changing course and character as successive peoples come and go, adding new voices and making new stories. So the idea for The Storylands Sessions was born. These are two monthly events in Badenoch, one an open mic focused on storytelling and poetry, with music weaving it all together, and the second a trad tunes session, threaded with stories.

The venue for the open mic is the Loch Insh Watersports centre, so I decided our first theme would be ‘water’ and desperately begged everyone I knew to come and, better still, tell a tale. I was terrified only two-and-half people would turn up and it would feel like slowly setting concrete. But I arrived to a room bright and beautifully arranged by the Loch Insh team and a gradual trickle of people with eager faces.

In our Introduction to Storytelling workshop we started by talking about the common sayings and mottos in our families, like “Waste not want not” or “Blood is thicker than water”. And then we asked: who were the natural raconteurs of our upbringing? The repositories of family history and local legend? There are stories all around us and we tell them all the time, from our explanation for being late to the blow-by-blow account of Auntie Yolanda’s disastrous wedding.

After the workshop, Hamish kicked off the open mic with a bright reel on the whistle called Spey in Spate in celebration of this waterway so prone to flooding. We then listened to Duncan Freshwater’s story of his father Clive’s landmark battle to win access rights on the river in the early days of the Loch Insh watersports centre.

Then the night flowed on through poems about eels, the Spey and The Grey Coast; a comic ballad about an old fisherman, a song about boats and more music on piano, guitar and bazouki. There were hot pies and cold drinks and the stories spilled out: the one from Alice Goodridge, our channel swimmer who was ‘billy no mates’ when she arrived here looking for dookin buddies and has gone on to set up Cairngorm Wild Swimmers and Loch Insh Dippers, with hundreds taking the plunge.

I told the story of The Chapel of the Swans, our ancient church above Loch Insh, with its monks, myths and magical bell. We listened to the tale of a runaway canal barge and a woman’s memories of carrying water to her Irish grandmother’s house. The evening finished with the story from Alistair, my husband and a local GP, of the time in Kathmandu when his unconventional use of ‘Water of Life’ – electrolyte solution – saved a woman’s life. Hamish played us out with his original piano piece, The Dance, and by the end, the place was brimming.

People were talking and laughing – masks and space retained where necessary – but still wallowing happily together in the great wash of good company. Afterwards, when we were packed up, I was exhausted, but high as a kid catapulting off a pier.

Two weeks later, we rode the wave again at The Ghillies Rest bar in the Duke of Gordon Hotel, Kingussie. This time Hamish was master of ceremonies for the Trad Tunes night, and his workshop, A Guide to Folk Sessions, was booked out. With guidance on everything from handling beginners’ nerves to arranging jig medleys, it covered the ABCs of making these mysterious, slippery community gigs work.

Once the music struck up, we had fiddles, whistles, guitars, keyboard, bodhran, a banjo, two harps and a set of small pipes. Keeping everybody in tune and time is no mean feat, but Hamish never once resorted to whacking folks with a shinty stick. He’s saving that for next time. Along with a host of eager amateurs, we were lucky to have top local musicians Ilona Kennedy and Charlie McKerron on fiddles and Sandy MacDonell on pipes. There was even a song, with everyone belting out the chorus of Yellow on the Broom. Together, we lifted the roof.

We have longed for this: to come back together and share our stories, our songs and our lives.

The Storylands Sessions are on every first and fourth Tuesday of the month till February 2022 – and hopefully longer. The second Tuesday of the month is the storytelling event at Loch Insh Boathouse, Kincraig. Our next one is October 12th and the theme is Migration – of wildlife, people, ideas, languages or however you wish to interpret it – so come and share your tale, poem or music! We’re very lucky to have Traveller, author and storyteller, Jess Smith, as our special guest, who will be telling stories and leading a workshop at 7pm on The Natural Voice. Advance booking is essential: click here.

Then, the fourth Tuesday of every month is Hamish’s Trad Tunes session at the Duke of Gordon Hotel, Kingussie. Again, the workshops start at 7 and need to be booked in advance, while the sessions start at 8.30 and are drop-in. For full information and bookings see here. If you’re in the area, come on in – there’s a seat for you.

A shorter version of this article first appeared in The Sunday Post.