LOVE AND FREEDOM
A SONGMAKER OF THE PEOPLE – MARY BROOKSBANK (1897–1980)

Nigel Gatherer in ‘Songs and Ballads of Dundee’ says that the Brooksbanks were a singing family, and that it was ‘while Mary was nursing her sick mother that she began writing poetry and songs, which she eventually published in 1966, in a collection called ‘Sidlaw Breezes’. The cost of the book was covered by Mary herself, and she lost money on it.’
Dundee journalist and writer Maurice Fleming interviewed Mary Brooksbank in 1966 for ‘Chapbook Vol 3 no.4’ when she was a tiny, stocky woman in her sixties, who sang and played the fiddle at Dundee Folk Club. She was born in a single-end in Aberdeen where her father worked on the docks and helped to establish the Dockers’ Union. Next door lived “a happy gallus family, who travelled all summer and came back to roost in winter. One of the McPhail boys played the squeeze-box and they sang like linties.” From this traveller family Mary’s mother, herself a fine singer, picked up the tune to which Mary was later to put the words of ‘As I Cam Ower Strathmartine Mains’.
He played a reel an he played a jig, an he played a swet strathspey
He roosed ma hert tillits beat kept time tae the tappin o me tae
‘Oh, I’ve nae gowd tae offer ye, for I’ve gaithered little gear
But we’ll hae love and freedom, gin ye’ll follow me ma dear’
Her mother was originally a fisher lass, but worked in the jute mills in Dundee, often leaving Mary to look after the younger children. Mary was largely self-educated. Mary started work as a shifter at thirteen in the Baltic Jute Mill and became a spinner at fifteen. She became politically active very young and ‘led protest marchers through the streets of Dundee in the Twenties’.
We are out for higher wages, as we have a right to do
And we’ll never be content til we get oor ten percent, for we have a right tae live as well as you

Mary told Fleming about her best known song, ‘The original went like this:
Oh, dear me, the mill’s gaen fast, the puir wee shifters canna get a rest
Shiftin’ bobbins coorse and fine, wha the hell wad work for ten and nine.’
‘That was a’ there was of it, just one verse. I first heard it in 1912 … they used tae sing it in the street and up and down the passes between the frames in the mills.’
Oh dear me, I wish the day was done, runnin up an doon the pass is no nae fun
Shiftin, peicin, spinng, warp weft and twine, tae feed and cled my bairnie aften ten and nine
Oh dear me, the warld’s ill-divided, them that works the hardest are aye the least provided
But I maun bide contented, dark days or fine, there’s nae much pleasure living aften ten and nine

The 2022 book ‘In One Woman’s Life, Celebrating Mary Brooksbank’, edited by Erin Farley & Siobhan Tolland, published by Abertay Historical Society, tells much about Mary’s life and the social context of her times and her musical legacy.