(no subject)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAJdHzImqVI
"..It's often said, and I think it's true too, that our gathering here is very traditional and we like to keep to it that way... there in a sense also, a link in people's minds with tradition and things that are traditional that they are perhaps old-fashioned, that they're perhaps out of date, that they're of yesteryear- but on the other hand, and I hope that you may share this, it's worth thinking about: the traditions that we have, we actually treasure very dearly. these games this afternoon have taken this shape for all the lifetime that I remember. it's a very deeply seated tradition in Srathardle, and it's something that we're all, although we don't admit and maybe don't talk and think about it very much, -it's deep within us.
I remember, and I'm sure many others will remember, the year of 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell, when the Soviet domination of eastern Europe came to end. I found myself in Budapest, in Hungary, just shortly after that. if I were passing the afternoon on a weekday: the people in Budapest were dancing in the streets, and I said to the Hungarians that I was with 'why are they doing that?' and the comment back to me was, for all the forty four years previously in the Soviet period: they had not been permitted to dance their local dances, to exercise their traditions, to follow their own culture and what a joyous thing for them all now to be able to do it- and after all, that was forty four years, nearly two generations. and I draw the parallel only that we have never lost our freedom, thank goodness, to do that, but it was a tradition in those people, that despite the passing of all that time it was as important and as precious to them as it had been forty years before."
Chieftain, Sir Michael Nairn (I think that's his name) 126th Strathardle Highland Gathering 2007
"..It's often said, and I think it's true too, that our gathering here is very traditional and we like to keep to it that way... there in a sense also, a link in people's minds with tradition and things that are traditional that they are perhaps old-fashioned, that they're perhaps out of date, that they're of yesteryear- but on the other hand, and I hope that you may share this, it's worth thinking about: the traditions that we have, we actually treasure very dearly. these games this afternoon have taken this shape for all the lifetime that I remember. it's a very deeply seated tradition in Srathardle, and it's something that we're all, although we don't admit and maybe don't talk and think about it very much, -it's deep within us.
I remember, and I'm sure many others will remember, the year of 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell, when the Soviet domination of eastern Europe came to end. I found myself in Budapest, in Hungary, just shortly after that. if I were passing the afternoon on a weekday: the people in Budapest were dancing in the streets, and I said to the Hungarians that I was with 'why are they doing that?' and the comment back to me was, for all the forty four years previously in the Soviet period: they had not been permitted to dance their local dances, to exercise their traditions, to follow their own culture and what a joyous thing for them all now to be able to do it- and after all, that was forty four years, nearly two generations. and I draw the parallel only that we have never lost our freedom, thank goodness, to do that, but it was a tradition in those people, that despite the passing of all that time it was as important and as precious to them as it had been forty years before."
Chieftain, Sir Michael Nairn (I think that's his name) 126th Strathardle Highland Gathering 2007