Continued documentary of a man of the open road: storyteller, ballad-singer and descendant of Shakespeare's hero. This last programme includes 16 song items & 4 stories as well as the background information to two ballads, the first, MacCAFFERY, whose crime was to shoot his commanding officer, and MacPHERSON, the freebooter, who played his fiddle as he waited under the gallows before being hung before his reprieve arrived with the Queen's pardon. Also includes talk about poaching, games, football, fights and playing truant from school.

1. Talk and song: MacCAFFERY - 4'17"

2. Further talk about the previous song - 1'25"

3. Song: THE WIND BLEW THE BONNY LASSIE'S PLAIDIE AWA' - 0'29"

4. Family song fragments: (a) HEY, JUMP, AND ON YOU GO (learned from his mother)/ (b) AWA' TAE THE SCAP I' THE MORNIN' (from grandfather, George Innes)/ (c) TOBACCO PIPES AND PORTER (from his father)/ (d) THE SMITH'S A GALLANT FIREMAN (from father)/ (e) WHEN THE BOAT COMES IN (from his mother)/ (f) SKIPPIN' BARFIT THROUGH THE HEATHER (from mother) - 3'09"

5. Talk about games, fights, football, playing truant from school etc - 3'55"

6. Song: VAN DIEMAN'S LAND - 1'10"

7. Talk about poaching - 2'10"

8. Song: MacCALLUM, THE POACHER - 3'18"

9. Story: THE DARK WOOD - 1'17"

10. Song: HE WIDNA WANT HIS GRUEL - 2'27"

11. Story: THE RICH GIRL AND THE ROBBERS - 2'19"

12. Song: THE GALLANT FORTY-TWA - 2'57"

13. Song: MacPHERSON - 3'12"

14. Talk about the previous song - 4'53"

15. Fragment of ballad: EPPIE MORRIE - 0'21"

16. Story: THE DEVIL O' PORTSOY - 3'51"

17. Song: TORN-A-RIPIT-A-TORN-A-MA-GOON & talk - 0'58"

18. Story: 4 SCOTTISH POETS (Dr. Ferguson's Party) - 6'06"

19. Song: THE TROOPER LAD - 3'30"

Recorded 1951-3. Edited by Peter Kennedy and first published by Folktrax 1975.

JIMMY MacBEATH (1894-1972) was born at Portsoy, Banffshire, in 1894. At the age of 13 he was hired at Brandane's Fair to work on a farm in the parish of Deskford and received o4 for his first "haflin" and 5 guineas for the second half of the year. Although he tried his hand at many jobs, he was happiest as a beggar on the open road. In his later years, though previously a bit shy at singing in the streets, he became known as one of the last singers of "The Cornkisters" or "Bothy Ballads". He travelled much of Scotland, Ireland and England and also went to the Channel Islands and to Canada, and his Army Service took him to Egypt. During the sixties he performed at a number of folk clubs and festivals including the first Keele Folk Festival.

Jimmy first became known to Hamish Henderson in the summer of 1951 and some of these recordings were made in July 1951. Two years later he was invited to London to take part in David Attenborough's "Ballad Hunter" series on TV at Alexandra Palace, when further recordings were made, November 1953, by Peter Kennedy.

Further details about him can be found in TOCHER No. 12 (published by The School of Scottish Studies, Edinburgh, 1973).