Category: Monumentally Grieg!

Our Honorary Director was delighted to be invited along this month to the opening of a very special community garden in the village of Rathen, Aberdeenshire. Inventively named by the children of the local primary school, the garden celebrates the community’s deep-rooted links with Norway and an exciting family connection with composer Edvard Grieg.

North East Scotland was enjoying one of those bonnie summer days with blue skies, barely a breeze, and birds that canna help but sing, when our Honorary Director arrived at the peaceful village of Rathen – kindly invited there by the staff and children of Rathen Primary School, to attend a grand ‘opening’!

‘Aye, foos it gaun?’ [hvordan går det?] came the cheerie cry as folks came up the brae, assembling not far from the kirkyard where composer Edvard Grieg’s paternal ancestors lie buried. It was a grand morning. But what none of us expected as we wandered by the granite school building, was the beautiful, neatly planted garden which greeted us, and the beautifully choreographed opening ceremony which followed.

Invited to sit round a neat fence and carefully cut patch of grass, we had much to admire – early tatties in neat rows, birds at the bird feeders, borders full of blossoming begonias, and an abundance of bushes and trees providing a natural sheltering hedge.

Settled, or rather, gently squeezed into our appointed places, we waited as an impressively long line of schoolchildren filed by, and sitting row by row, filled the deep green grassy space before us until it became a waving sea of blue jumpers and happy faces.

This was going to be fun!

A hush descended over the gathering as the youngsters delivered their speeches of welcome and thanks. The Grieg Society of Scotland, along with representatives from Aberdeenshire Council, were warmly welcomed, as were the two most important guests of the day – Mr and Mrs Greig, who farmed by the village, and who had kindly gifted the land to the community for the purposes of making this excellent and educational garden.

Mr Jim Greig, whose folks had farmed in the district for generations, had ‘aye thocht’ he was related to Edvard Grieg, and so it was, with this musical and family link in mind, the children had chosen a special and thoughtful name for their fertile plot. Proudly announcing the opening of ‘Grieg’s Healthy Hedge Community Garden’ (a name we feel sure will blossom in many ways!) there came a vote of approval too, as a worm, the cause of great wriggling and hilarity, suddenly made its appearance amidst the children on the grass – a ‘healthy’ sign indeed!

After a tree was planted and a ribbon cut, it was back to the village hall for a ‘fly cuppie’ and a ‘fancy piece’, all rounded off with a song – spoken in Scots, sung in Norwegian – from our Honorary Director who much enjoyed her day in the garden with Grieg!

Skotsk – Norsk
Aye, foos it gaun? – hvordan går det?
Tatties – poteter
Aye thocht – alltid tenkte
Fly cuppie – en hastig kopp te eller kaffe
Fancy piece – et lite kakkestykke

Author: Dr Sally LK Garden

Over two bright, but bracing January days, our Honorary Director made a special visit to the Aberdeenshire village of Rathen to set the Society’s project Monumentally Grieg! in motion. Though the weather was chill, the welcome could not have been warmer.

Day 1 was set aside to meet informally with representatives of Banff and Buchan Community Council and Aberdeenshire Council, to chat and scope out ideas for the local community’s participation in both conservation and interpretation aspects of the project. We were delighted to find that word had spread, and as we gathered for our conversation in the kirkyard, our meeting with three, grew to a gathering with seven interested individuals, including two members of the local kirk session, plus one of the two head teachers and the pupil support assistant at Rathen Primary School.

The meeting generated a number of productive themes the Society can help develop with the input of the community. These include: education and language-learning, local heritage and family history, tourism, and community participation in conservation workshop activity.

We learned too, that composer Edvard Grieg is ‘aye ca’d’ – always called, in the lilting Doric tongue of his ancestors, simply ‘Edward Greig’ – a fine compliment, and sure sign that his spirit is alive in the community!

Day 2 we welcomed our conservation expert Clara Molina Sanchez of Spectrum Heritage, to make a site visit to assess the condition of the gravestone. This, in the midst of a snell wind, brought a surprise, and puzzle. Beneath the grass, lay a layer of mortar. A discovery, from our conservation point of view, which will need some thought!

A lot now has to be done to develop our formal plans and submissions to relevant authorities, a process that will take us into early spring. But looking round the kirkyard, maybe that’s not so far off – isn’t there a change of season in the air?

Above our heads the corbies cawed and circled, settling softly on the winter-bare branches, curious perhaps to see such a gathering below. And round our feet, the first shy snowdrops, sheltering among the stones, listened to our chatter and laughter. With these first hints of Spring, finally, gently, the first phase of Monumentally Grieg! was underway!

Author: Dr Sally LK Garden

A project of the Grieg Society of Scotland to conserve and interpret the ancestral gravestone of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg at Rathen Old Kirkyard, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

The gravestone of composer Edvard Grieg’s great great grandparents John Greig and Anne Milne, which lies in Rathen kirkyard, near Fraserburgh, has been deteriorating fast in recent years and is now in a poor state of preservation. The stone has sunk so far into the ground, that its outline is now obscured by grass and its lettering almost illegible. Work urgently needs to be done to conserve it from further deterioration, and to give a new generation of visitors to the site a means to interpret this key physical symbol, both of Edvard Grieg’s connection with Scotland, and of Scottish-Norwegian cultural friendship and exchange.

In its original state, the gravestone made an elegant monument – gracefully understated, crisply inscribed and raised on beautifully carved stone supports. But today, searched out here by the Grieg Society of Scotland, it looks sad, forlorn and almost forgotten.

The gravestone was erected in the 1770s by the children of John and Anne to commemorate, first, their father who tenanted the nearby farm of Mosstoun of Cairnbulg, and later, in the 1780s, their widowed mother.  Continue reading “Monumentally Grieg!”