Scotland: The Sound of Home

Scotland: Where the Wind Remembers

📝 Episode Synopsis:

In this deeply personal episode, Martyn Stewart takes us on an evocative journey through the soundscapes of Scotland—a land he calls home in heart, soul, and spirit. From the soft rustle of winds in the Lowlands to the haunting cries of curlews above Culloden Moor, Martyn reflects on his decades of recording, walking, and falling in love with Scotland’s wild places.

We travel through the Borderlands, Highlands, and Islands, weaving through memories of football, first visits, and lifelong rituals—like kissing the welcome sign at Gretna Green. Martyn recounts tales of Rannoch Moor, Glen Tilt, and the Isle of Skye, and speaks about recording with honour and grief at Culloden, where the winds still whisper the stories of the fallen.

This episode is also a meditation on loss—of species, of silence, of time—and a call to love the world deeply enough to preserve it. Whether you’re a lifelong nature lover or a curious traveler, this sonic pilgrimage to Scotland is a love letter to wildness, history, and home.

www.thelisteningplanet.com

Transcript

This is Martin Stewart with a life in sound from the listening planet.

Good morning, Martin. Good morning. So I'm very excited about this one today because

we get to go to a place that is really close to your heart. I think we say that

about a locations but we're going to go to Scotland today and for those of you who

don't know this about Martin despite the fact that he has some weird liver puddle

in mixed with Birmingham accent he actually thinks of himself as Scottish more than

English and I want to start with we're going to cover the different soundscapes of

the lowlands the highlands, the coastal areas and the islands. But I'd really like

to start at the beginning, which is where we always like to start. And I think you

were, it was 1967 when you first fell in love with Scotland and I do believe there

might be a link to a football team. - Glasgow Celtic, I've loved football my life

and Lasga sold it for the first time to win the European Cup in 1967 and I

watched it on the box, on the telly in black and white and the hoops won it and

I thought that was great and they were playing in my favourite colours as well even

though you couldn't see the colour of the team on the TV because of being black

and white but they had these magic hoop shirts and the next year Manchester United

won it which was from my mum's place where she was born in Manchester but Scotland

I fell in love with Scotland 1967 through a football team football team the Yanks

over here call it soccer but it's football. We actually use our feet. The Yanks use

their arms and they only have one player who kicks a ball. We use 11. Definitely

want to insult the entire US nation right now. But you didn't travel there until

you were 17 years old and I'd like you to talk to us about, you're 17, you go to

Cumbertrees which is in the Borderlands, which is the Highlands, no the the lowlands,

border countries are lowlands, talked to me about what it was that do you remember

what you first saw, what you first heard, describe the setting for me and bring it

to life sonically for us.

So there's something that happened in 1967 when I first went across the border.

on the border called Gretna Green and it started a ritual of me every time I went

into Scotland to kiss the Scotland sign. So as soon as you got through Carlisle on

the M6 motorway, you got to Gretna Green and then the A74 used to start.

So you'd go into Gretna and you'd have a bit of Scottish tradition,

maybe a piece of fudge or a bit of shortcake or whatever, but we went off to,

me and my first wife Deb, we went off to a place called Cometries as you said,

and it broke out onto the Solway Firth which is the water that kind of introduces

Scotland from England and England from Scotland and tons and tons of Wilderfell,

loads of gulls. The place where we camped was this beautiful campsite where even

today if you go into Scotland it's a recorder stream so I always wanted to go and

record in places like that so I would always pack, I would pack less stuff but

always include my recorder. So the landscapes were just amazing.

Describe Sir Martin the lowlands have got a softer more subdued acoustic proof,

they're more gentle undulating landscapes. Yeah there's a lot more trees.

There are a lot more trees on the borders. In the Highlands, you hardly see any

trees anywhere. They have the, they call the Highland Clearances. I know that was

supposed to be for clearing. There's a clansman off the land. But if you go from

the A9 all the way to Inverness, you hardly see a tree. But you're on the

borderland, and you've got trees. You've got deciduous trees, you've got evergreen

trees, you've got scott pine and beautiful winds and I love the sound of winds

through the grasses. You're not quite into the heather there,

you know, you've got grasslands, you've got farming communities

and then probably After being up there for about 10 days and visiting the pubs,

which you have to do I

Decided a year later that I would walk Hadrian's wall which was from Carlisle to

Burykupan Tweed There's like 80 or 90 miles and I did that I did it across Hadrian

built the wall to stop the invading Scots coming into England, which didn't really

hold it back in it. You're not going to stop a raging, kilt wearing Scotsman from

doing what he wants to do. But the plaintive sounds of lapwings and curlews and

stuff in the air is beautiful about Scotland. And you get plenty of that.

What is it that makes, so when you cross over, you know, from being a Sassanach to

a Highlander, and you're suddenly in this,

does it feel different? I mean clearly they blend together, but what is it that you

start to feel as you go into Scotland and you cross crossover.

Talk to me about like what you're sensing there.

It's weird you know. I didn't know my dad was Scottish until I was 27 years of

age and I found out my dad was Scottish then. Before that when I used to go into

Scotland it was almost like going home Even though, you know,

there were no family members or any of that stuff up there. It just had this

feeling of tradition and history and untouched lands.

No built -up cities as such. I mean, Glasgow and Edinburgh and Airdrie were good

mates of mine from imagery. It's a horrible part of the country.

I mean it's rough and you go into Glasgow and I went many a times to go and see

Celtic play and you go into the gobbles. The gobbles are knocked down now but back

then it was just such a rough place. You didn't stop and you didn't ask anybody.

There's a real funny story. There's a guy called Alan Johnson who I used to go to

school with and he wanted me to take him up to Scotland so he had a obviously an

English accent and Braveheart was being shown in sterling movies the cinema there the

picture house And we went and watched Braveheart, and everybody's riled up,

you know, "You're a bastard." And he said, "Oh my God,

I'm not going to be able to speak, I can't talk or anything else like this." I

said, "You'll be all right." And the guy comes up to him and says, "Hey, you, you

got the time." And he just shows him his wrist. You wouldn't do it.

So there's that kind of craziness up there.

When we first started working with Robert, so Anna and Stephen Melrose on the album

that we're doing with them called Imperfect Cadence, we do these Zoom calls with the

three of you, so you, Stephen and Robert. And I wish there were subtitles underneath

because Oh hello, hello, ah the satirah, oh the Highlander, oh I just didn't

understand the word. Have you ever seen train spotting? Yes of course. You've seen

train spotting right? I saw that with Gru when we came to America and we went up

to Canada and we're in Vancouver and I said let's go and see train spotting I

really want to see that And they're all sitting in the cinema, and there's subtitles

on the screen, and they're saying to me, "Why can't they understand? What's that

about?" It's English. And she's saying, "I don't understand what the hell is going

on here anyway." You know, when you talk to me in the past about how birds can

have different accents in different parts of the United States, I don't suppose they

have different accents, if they're a Highlander bird.

No, they're kind of still guttural in a way. I mean, you get rocks that have got

Scottish accents. I always think of, I've been to Scotland, I mean, far fewer times

than you. But when you talk about the open expanse, there's something for me about

just the, the sky feels bigger. And Maybe because it's less built up and there's so

much more of the vista that you can see, but you feel like you can breathe. It

feels so expansive in certain places. It feels clean. It feels clean. It does feel

as though it has that sense of wilderness in it, and you know,

there's a wilderness to it, and talk to me about

some of the sounds that you really wanted to capture when you, I'm still going to

stay on the lowlands for a moment before we go into the highlands, but in the

lowlands you've got those beautiful, like Sulway Firth is beautiful, and these vast

expanses of water, but were there any particular sounds that you really wanted to

capture when you first went up to Scotland?

Just the openness, I mean, I've touched on this many times.

In those days, there were less people and the infrastructure wasn't as it is today.

I mean, there were times when I recorded places. And then years later,

the modification of a road and more traffic were taking in north. But they didn't

really to the countryside or, you know, the glens. I mean,

if you drove up on the A9 or the A74,

the road would take you through villages like Lockerbie and Retner,

obviously.

So you had that kind a closeness I suppose. Now of course the motorways are being

expanded and they've taken them away from the village. But you just felt like as

soon as you went across the border it was just another world. I mean it's all part

of the UK but it feels like you're in a different country. I don't know if that's

my mind, I don't know if that's something, but you know,

that's where I want to have my ashes spread, that's where I want to end up, you

know, and there's instructions around the whole bloody family that where I'm going to

end up is there. And when we publish this, it'll be record of it. This is Martin's

final testament. The final testament, But, things like pippets and buzzards and you

see the first time the Ospreys came back into Scotland was 1976 I think it was and

I was able to go and, I didn't record them but I was able to go and witness them

unlock all That was the Ospreys, the first breeding pair that came back into

Scotland after all these years of not being there. Even the birds,

you know, even the animals know it's a better place. I mean, you think of England,

Northumbria and stuff like that is another magical place,

but it seems like there's It's the definite line that makes you feel differently

when you cross the border. It was really beautiful for me to see you collaborating

with Honour and the first track that we're planning to release at the end of

September is set in Solway Firth and it's called You and I and I just remember

that sound of the whipperswands And there's almost like a trumpeting,

this beautiful performance that's happening in the sky. And you've got gulls,

Eurasian blackbirds, jackdolls, I love the jackdolls. Blackbirds everywhere though,

right? Yeah. The blackbird is there. You know when you go on holidays and you see

somebody, oh my god, you know, kind of brings you back home? And the blackbird,

when the Blackbird, when I go back home, whether it be into Birmingham,

London, the North, Manchester, into Scotland, you always get welcomed by the

Blackbird. And the Blackbird, you know, it's just the same,

it's just that homely feeling, it's wonderful. And of course the lowlands are full

of Blackbirds and song thrushes. But like you say, the Solway Firth is,

as Robert was saying, it's a special place for him. I think that's where he

proposed to his wife. Means a lot to him and that track you and I is,

is just stunning. Remember the first time we heard that? Yeah. It was like something

from Rob Roy, you know, it was something amazing song. Yes it's really beautiful,

it's really beautiful. I want to, I want you to talk about the Highlands which is

probably my favourite part of Scotland and we're going to talk about the islands in

coastal areas. There's something so beautifully rugged and otherworldly and you've got

the deep cliffs and the rocky outcrops and the deep valleys and it's such a

completely different sonic soundscape. Talk to me about the Highlands Martin and quite

a few of the songs that you did with Robert are set in the Highlands.

Well I went to live up there in 1989. I bought a shop in Blair Athol in

Perthshire and it was almost magical that place was.

I got chances to, we ran the shop you know seven days a week but I used to have

my Wednesday off, I used to insist I get my Wednesday and I had two dogs, one

called Haggis, one called Midge, and we used to go through Glen Tilt and we used

to go up, I'm told, at the time they're not mountains, they're hills, so anything

above 3 ,000 feet is called a Munro, and I tried to to do these Munros,

and the first feeling that you have going into the Highlands It's when you get past

Stirling, when you see Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument and you're heading

north, it's brilliant. Every corner you turn,

every bend, every glen, there's something different, it's almost like you're taking

photos and every photo you take is brilliant. You never get a bad photo.

The Highlands are just special and of course if you if you mix the history with

that as well, it has a lot more meaning to it. I mean you imagine how the

Klansmen kind of lived and fighting across each territory and you got the McDonald's

and the Campbell's fighting each other and you've got you know the phrases and

you've got all of these other name clans and stuff but to me getting out and

getting into the glens and walking up the Monroe's is another world.

It's almost like dying and you've gone to heaven. I think you know we've talked

about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a

special place to me because that feeling of wilderness, but Scotland gives you that

feeling. And the people I met up there, I love them dearly, they're just fabulous

people. And they're very suspicious, you know, they're very, the things when we had

the shop,

I didn't know what messages was, I had no idea what the hell that was. and I'd be

in the shop at the till and someone would come in and say, "Here's Mrs.

Gray's messages." And I'd think, "What's she gonna say?" So they'd give me a list

and there'd be a pint of milk, a loaf of bread, a can of soup.

And I learned that messages were a shopping list. So, and they're very kind of,

Like I say, suspicious people up there, they don't want to be seen that they drink

in the house. They don't want to be seen that they drink too much and stuff.

And you get shops coming in saying, waiting for the shop to empty and then tell

you to put a quarter bottle in a bag so they can get out. But that romance of

that place, It spills into the countryside,

there's just this connection with everything which just feels so pure,

so beautiful.

One of my other favourite tracks that Robert did is The Lowe's and that was on

Culloden Moor. Oh wow. And talk to me a bit about the, it's almost you've got the

curler and the skylock on the wind and this melody playing out as they soar above

the battlefield. It's almost filling the air with a cascade of trills and wobbles

and talk to me about the significance for you of Culloden and you feel it in the

nature sounds and you feel it in the music that Robert's put together But it's just

this vast expanse where this incredible battle of Culloden moor Happened as a talk

to us a bit about recording there Martin

It's recording there was almost

How would you say almost a privilege almost like

It's a sacred ground that you feel very humble by.

It's a very dark feeling. It's you know the the last battle field in the last war

that ever happened in the United Kingdom

and the clans fighting for their right and for their land and the the clans that

dropped, you see all these headstones on Culloden Moor.

And if you took a metal detector into any part of that, you could still find shot

from the muskets. But when you stand there,

I went there just before the spring started.

So you've got that, you've always got grey skies, you've always got mist and the

mist always gives you that kind of atmosphere.

But the sound of the winds, the sound of the curlers and the sound of the

lapwings, that is Scotland to me. Every Glen has that and it's almost like the

birds are passing on a message from one to each other, you know,

have that reverence, have that feeling of being humble. It's almost,

there's almost a haunting sound. That's exactly what it's like. And is that because

of the, is that because of the expansiveness? What's creating? Because even the

sound, even though if you're not there, you can close your eyes and listen to this.

And it feels otherworldly. Why is that,

is that because of the actual vastness? Is it because of the echoes? I think a lot

of it is to do with the history. I think if you listen to that track that I

recorded up there, I recorded a few of them and each one is the same and I think

if you got someone to listen to a lot and more you think okay it's a nice

atmospheric sound it's quiet it's tranquil it's whatever but if you tell somebody the

story behind Calodon more it kind of makes you feel a lot different and you listen

to it differently you you kind of here. It's not present, but you can almost hear

the sound of the pipes flowing in the wind, you know, as they're going into battle.

And there was always a pipe of that to keep the morale of the clansmen going with

the sound of the pipes. And when they dropped, you know, that was that. But it's a

magical place.

It's one where I step onto the battlefield,

and I feel okay. I won't be here too long. I promise you,

you know, I respect where you fell and I understand what you went through.

The way Robert put that song together, it's the Lowe's,

right? It's called the Lowe's. That's called the Lowe's, yeah. How he mixed music

with natural sounds was, I think he did it in a respectful manner and like he says

himself, it's a very dark feeling and he wanted to have that kind of darkness to

the song. It's very beautiful. Is it difficult to record?

I always think of

The sound of the wind as being a constant companion in the Highlands. And does that

make it difficult to record there? Yeah, very much so. I developed a technique.

You know, when you have a microphone and you've got it in a basket and covered it

with wind jammers and all kinds of stuff, I realised that

When you mount that on a tripod, the tripod is standing up four or five feet,

but when the wind is hitting the tripod, you're getting the noise straight into the

microphone itself, so you get that kind of handling noise. So I drop them, the

tripod as low as possible, and then get into a kind of semi -shaded space where the

heather is or there's tufts of grass. And the wind almost just glides over the top

like some supersonic car that's been built the way it is to get through the jet

streams.

It's hard. I mean, there's a lot of times when I was on the Arctic National

Wildlife Refuge, some of my recordings were messed up because of the sound of the

wind in the tripod but you've got to capture it just right otherwise you know the

whole thing is ruined but I think you get the birds in the sky though if you'll

try because the mic picks it up the mic doesn't discriminate the microphone will

pick it up I use a directional microphone and I use a an omnidirectional microphone

so one covers 360 degrees And the other one points out more directional,

so I mixed the two together so you can balance, you know, in post. But in them

days I had tape when I was doing all that stuff, which was harder still because

you had to manipulate how it sounded through tape. You didn't have computers to mix

up stuff, you know, It was very hard, you had a pair of scissors and a splicer.

- Would you go out early in the morning or middle of the day? Did you have a time

preference when you'd prefer to be out recording? - Every day in the morning,

for sure. You got up before the birds got up. There wasn't a lot of insect sounds

or frogs up there in the

But um always the morning but always late in the afternoon as well because you get

us kind of a Second kick you get the dust chorus and not a lot of people talk

about the dust course, but there is a Chorus just before they go to bed,

and it's almost like you know, I keep saying these discussions They have it's almost

like a discussion like the Waltons do. Night John, night John boy, night Ari,

night Dave. And is it the birds from the daytime who are just... Yeah, it's the

birds from the daytime. They're all rolling in their stuff ready to put out for the

rest of the night crowd that come out. And who's the night crowd in Scotland? Well

you get frogs, but later on in the summer season then you get late autumn you get

some insect choruses but of course the night time you get owl choruses yeah I was

wondering if it was the owl the owls are cool the owls are really cool I think we

have an owl that lives around here this this family of owls I mean so big and

it's the one thing that makes my two dogs go so crazy in the middle of the night

because she suddenly decides she's going to come out and make some noise but it is

just unbelievable to see her in the flesh and there's something about the owls at

night time that's magical for me yeah magical yeah they're wonderful I often imagine

you because I never think of Scotland as warm so I imagine you it's freezing

- Early in the morning, freezing with your microphone and just sitting there very

quietly. - I was freezing, freezing cold. I had wax jackets, wax hats. I had double

clothing. - I was gonna say, did you wear clothes back then, Martin? - I wore

clothes. - 'Cause also people might not know this, but Martin turned up to New York

when we were doing the launch on Earth Day, which sounds right,

and he had the thinnest jacket jacket because he's living in Florida he's forgotten

what it's like to be cold. Martin still keeps talking about going back to Scotland

but you have no clothes to go back to Scotland because you dress like a Floridian.

I'd have to buy them again. I'd have to definitely buy them again. Funnily thing I

was looking the other day at a property just north of Dalwini on the A9 I thought

wow I'd love to be there. And you know, when you have the weather forecasters on

the, remember Michael Fish that used to, just before the BBC news,

and they would say, you know, Wales has some rain and some winds coming in. It's

South England, Rand London, we've got some sunshine, we've got this, that and the

other. In the central area, we have some sunbursts, we have whatever. And then

Scotland they just dismissed it they just said Scotland rain you know Scotland rain

I used to think that's that's not being precise but it's bloody is Marta talk to

me about what is it so you're in Florida because of the warmth right with the

illness it helps for you to stay warm what is it at this point in your life

that's calling you back to Scotland.

When I was a kid there was a film with Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers called

'The Ring of Bright Water' and it was done in the early 60s,

I think 1962 -63

And I remember that being one of the first films I'd ever seen,

and there was a guy who bought an otter in London and wanted to get out of the

rat race. So he bought a croft up in Scotland on the other side of the pass of

the Isle of Skye called Camus Furner and he was a writer and he would write about

Anna Painter and he would paint the otter and the life they had was very simple,

you know, that's the kind of life I love, I love simplicity,

But I've always wanted to go back and I think my soul is there.

There's almost a connection. You have to go and get charged. You know,

you're just a prime example basically. You're out in beautiful Oregon,

around a forested area where you live, but there's that feeling when you go home,

you know, when you go to Morgsbury and it makes you feel fulfilled. Yeah,

I feel at home. I don't want to get to a point in my life where I don't

appreciate, I

don't want to be in Florida, I don't want to be in America

and not think about where I want to be,

you know, I want, I want, I want my ashes to be scattered around Camus Furner.

And the craziest thing was when I was in Blair, I thought, I met a guy called

Hamish Pellon Byrne. And we used to go walking, we had our Labradors.

I had Midge, and I named Midge after the otter in Ringabright Water,

because he used to make the same sounds.

And he was just such a cool dog. And he was a white Labrador from a litter of

black Labradors that belonged to the Duke of Athol. So I had first picked the

litter and I took the white one and called him Midge, and Hamish used to come into

the shop and he'd say "Do you want to go on to the hills?" You know,

we used to go walking out there together. He had a black dog, a Labrador called

Zulu. And we were talking this one day and I was talking about the Ring of Bright

Water and he said "My best friend was Gavin Maxwell. I'll show you where his house

was. So he took me to Camus Verna. I remember being in that area,

just crying, bawling my eyes out. Just, that was, I talk about spiritual homes like

the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but, you know, to be at rest at that place.

And I just want to feel that going through my bones you know the last thing I do

before I pass this this mantle off it's just a special place a lot of people that

say well what is there you know is what's there to do but I'm pretty much a

simplistic guy I think also everybody that's listened to this and knows you knows

that a few people the better The more wildlife the better You know,

I've already established over a while Martin every place I visited Would be your

idea of hell and you've gone the other direction

Talk to me about some of the other parts in the Highlands. So is it that bloody

obvious?

So you've got run a more I'll talk about run a more

There's a set of locks that travel from Pitlochery through to Kinlochranach.

You've got Tommel Bridge and you've got Loch Tommel and Lochranach. And above

Lochranach is a hill of what we'll say mountain for this one called Shehalian.

And Haggis walked to the Shehalian from Kinlochranach. And the view from the top and

looked glorious, It's just fantastic.

So the first time I went to Ranak Moor, I took my two sisters with me,

my mom and my two sisters and Deb. We stayed in Kinloch Ranak and I said,

"I'm going to walk Ranak Moor. Do you wanna come?" My two sisters,

Liz and Michaela were really young then. And I said it's an easy walk.

I didn't know, you know, I'd looked through some modern and survey maps. But we got

to Rannick, Rannick station, which starts Rannick more. And we walked. And of course,

the weather was the worst you could possibly have with the rain and the winds

blowing into you. And I thought, I'm going to have my sisters killed here. We're

going to, We're going to get lost. We were following these telegraph poles and we

were saved by a local farmer who gave us a lift to the station just above Glencoe

and then we got the train back to Rannick station. We got back in the car and

went back to Kinlock Rannick. But I went there with with my recorder and I recorded

the the moors it is a place you know in in the UK you think where could I go

where you could be isolated well there's probably Bodmin Moor Dart Moor there's

probably the Yorkshire Moors but nothing nothing compares with compares with

Rannickmore. Rannickmore goes on forever. And a lot of people that see it,

they think it's just Heather, you know, but to me, every step you make on

Rannickmore is sacred. And the sound is just unbelievable.

I could play Rannickmore sounds to a lot of people and say,

What else is that? Is that it? But it's that feeling of pristine,

untouched for centuries, for thousands of years, Ranak Moor has stayed the way it

is. And if you go, oh, it's just spectacular.

And when you go the A82, I think it is if you're driving to Glencove you have to

go through Ranak Moor and the drive is the best drive anywhere in the world I've

been anywhere in the world every single country I've been through the world there is

not a drive better than going from through Ranak Moor to Glencove you see the papa

Glencove You see the three sisters as you go in there you've got the the atmosphere

of the mist coming down the hills and Desolation I mean,

that's that's heaven to me. No people, you know, there's nothing around In that one

recording that you sent over to Robert, there's also that very iconic and halting

crawl call over Curly and I always associate the Curly with Scotland.

Is that is that right? Is it do we have do we have Curly's in England or is it

more of a this Curly's down south but they they wear kilt's up in Scotland they

they need to be up there you know we've done some projects with a couple of

singers. I think one of them being Jenny Sturgeon. And she tells me that the curler

is absent from the Shetland Islands now, which is just unbelievable. - I was

listening to something on the BBC this morning about a certain number of birds that

are now on the red list in the United Kingdom. And one of them I know is the

Arctic Turn, who definitely pops into Scotland on its way down south. But it's

amazing the number of birds are now on the red list. And the birds,

we just don't... The Arctic Turn is on the red list? Yeah, according to the BBC

this morning. And there's so much written about what's been removed from our skies

and... And yet you hear these sounds, I mean the Curly has got such a distinct

association with me for Scotland and maybe it's because a lot of the tracks you

sent to Robert had the Curly. It was a Curly one. Yeah. You know we did that

project with Alice Boyd. Yeah. When she recorded the stuff I'd gone to the same

places I did back in the 70s. And the Non -existence of bird sound in her

recordings was disturbing. Yeah. I mean,

I need a better word than that. But I was cobsmacked at the loss of wildlife in

those recordings. Okay, I'm going to read it to you now. Five sea birds have been

added to the UK's red list. This means they're they're at real risk of dying out

or becoming extinct. Scientists looking at the country's breeding population say that

the leach storm petrol, the common gull, the great black -backed gull,

and the Arctic term in the great skewer are among Britain's most risk birds. I was

just announced this morning, 17 hours ago. - And does that give a reason for what,

why? - It's just unbelievably sad, 'cause you've already got the kitty wake, the

herring girl, the rosy at turn, the arctic skewer and puffin that were already on

the red list.

It's just incredibly sad.

So everything from climate change to overfishing to fishing gear, invasive predators,

I mean I think it's more complex than just one thing. And when we did the, we did

a project with the Natural History Museum and do you remember they kept talking to

you about wanting to do the sound of what our skies in Great Britain would sound

like if we took care again of the environment and remember you calling me up that

one day and going but Amanda this is what I recorded 50 years ago and for you

what's old is to this next generation what things could hopefully sound like again

And there are enough good stories, hopeful stories, but it was just a very sad

statement this morning, especially when we were talking about the skies. I mean,

Scotland for me is just full of the sky, of the sound of birds and the sky. I

also always have Martin in my head, the haunting call of the deer in the

background, where you hear different animals and some of recording is just and again

it seems to kind of the sound seems to carry through the ether and through the

wind and you feel that when you hear some of the sounds that you've recorded that

you've caught something in the distance and it's just carried along in the wind that

is so present with you in Scotland tell me one of one of my favorite birds up

there you know that I recorded years and years ago, what would I say,

forty, forty -five years ago, I recorded the Cappacali,

and the Cappacali was abundant in forests.

If you went through Glen Tilt, for

Glen Tilt would, you would end up towards Braymar, I think,

eventually. Glen Tilt was just such a fantastic walk,

and I recorded Cappacali there. They haven't seen Cappacali there for 20 years.

You know, there's Abernethy as well, Abernethy Forest.

They had Cappacali there and they're not there anymore. And there's a bird here in

the Audubon Society who contacts me regularly to ask if I can verify a sound that

he's heard. And he did a birding trip to the UK.

He was really looking forward to going and seeing Cappacali and he couldn't see

them. And the ones that they knew about were protected and you couldn't go into the

areas.

I don't know, I mean what I know from my past, if I had some magic potion and it

let me live for another 50 years, I wouldn't want it. The way things are going,

I mean that's sad, but The way things are going, people who were born into this

world now would never know any different. They would just understand what's present.

But when you've lived through something and the demise of nature,

how I've experienced it, I think we've gone past the tipping point. I really

honestly do, and you know I'm pretty optimistic about a lot of stuff. I'm not

pessimistic in things, but I don't see as the masses that we can wake up and

change this obvious path we're walking on.

If you think about the UK having 70 million people there,

Scotland only has about six, seven million people. So it's not overpopulation,

it's something else that's going on. But it's more complex when we look at reasons

behind species getting on the red list because it could be where they've migrated

from, it's the migratory parts. Yeah, it could be the wintering grounds. It's far

more complex and I think you and I talk about this a lot but I still, maybe

because it's because I have teenagers, But I am optimistic because I think they're

really remarkable. The next generation are really remarkable. I think your kids are

remarkable. I don't see that... I wish every kid was like your kid.

I feel that they... I think we'd have a wonderful world. I think too much of my

generation was still debating whether there was an issue. I see younger people being

born to this present and actually really recognising absolutely understanding the world

that they've inherited and trying to find innovative solutions to what they can do

about it. And I think I see so much innovation and entrepreneurialism,

not enough Martin, but it feels I'm just going to hold on to my glimmers of hope

whilst we move on. You have to do, you have to hold onto that. Was it taught to

me about? You know, you know, I'll just say one thing about that, basically, where,

you know, the biggest influence in my life with nature growing up was my brother

Alan, you know, and he nudged and pushed me in all kinds of directions,

and even to the point when I used to eat animals at one particular time he would

say how can you love nature the way you do and eat an animal and I used to bury

my head in the sand you know I used to just bob it away you know you don't know

what you're talking about it's not like that I course I respected and I was in

denial and when I woke up to the fact of what I was doing and realized I was

contributing into this demise. When Alan was dying,

when I went to see him in Wales, he was eating bacon and egg and sausage on his

plate. And I said, "What are you doing?" And he said, "It's dog eat dog in this

world." And I said, "How can you sell yourself down the river? How can you do

that?" And he said, "You know, all my life I've been doing this, that and the

other." And I just realised that what's the point. And I said, "That is such a

defeatist attitude to have." Yeah, it is defeatist. And I know I'm digressing. I'm

going off the subject a wee bit here. But I was told that I had to have animal

protein. I remember this. Here for my health. And there's no way on this earth I

could ever do that. There's no way I could do it. My love for nature and the love

for animals and the fact of tucking into a steak or a chicken sandwich,

I think. So now I subscribe to what you say. I think you have to believe that.

Or you have to live in a world of your own that you'd like other people to live.

But one of the things that I think I've taken from you very clearly is you've been

inspirational by just doing. No one asked you to, you didn't. You weren't looking

for a claim. You just, you set the role model for what you wanted to be and I

think how you wanted to contribute. And I do believe that each of us as

individuals, that's the best that we can do and if we work inside organisations we

can influence from the inside out too but I think I really believe that we've got

to set our own, be our own role of models for the world that we want to pass on

to our children for the and for our children to decide the world that they want to

live in and grow up in and I do feel 100 % And I think that's always been one of

the strongest parts for me about you, Martin. You've never preached, you've just

done. And I think that's a far more powerful, evocative tool.

Because I say this all the time, but it's only if you love something that you

really start to make a change and have an impact. Whereas if someone tells me what

to do, I'm naturally going to go to the opposite. If you make me love something

I'm going to make the right choices myself and and I think you know talking of

Scotland it's so beautiful and it's so it's the reason I love the album and the

work that we've been doing with honour because he's bringing attention back to this

beautiful, beautiful part of the world that doesn't sometimes get the acclaim that it

should and so many birds pass through Scotland. So much wildlife passes through

Scotland. I'd like us to touch on the my third bucket because I try and do things

in simple ways which is the coastal parts of Scotland and also the islands.

So talk to me about through the lowlands with its undulating hills, the highlands

with the kind of the roaring wind and the raggy rocks. Tell me about the coastal

parts in the islands and where you visited. I mean you visited everywhere but your

favourite parts and what we're going to hear and what we're going to see. I can't

tell you my favourite part. I know. That would be just impossible. But when you

said that, because time, when you're in the UK it seems like you only get two

weeks here or a week here or a week there. And I tried to cram as much possible

in that time period.

So, I think there's something in my life where I don't want to go back to the

place twice. Because I've already seen that, I want to go and see something else.

And thank God, Rue was like that as well. Let's go somewhere we haven't been. And

if you really went back to somewhere, like we did Costa Rica, that was kind of

special, but Scotland with sky,

around sky, when you see the islands and the sunsets coming down,

it's that history thing and that just breathtaking views and breathtaking sounds and

minimal people. I think, I don't think it's the case about the minimal people.

I think now in the summertime the Highlands are full of RVs,

you know, camper vans and stuff now because it's more accessible, but if you go,

for instance, from Inverness to the south, I forget,

you go through the drum and the rocket, you get the history of the Loch Ness

Monster and you're looking over your shoulders to see if you can see Nessie in the

water.

But again the history of the place and the sound of the place and the water

lapping on the Loch, the Scotts Pine, the deciduous trees,

the oaks that are there And each one is a house for something else to live in,

you know? Yeah. So the Caledonian Canal going from Palomboa around Inverness and the

Black Isle. And then you head towards Invergaria. You end up down that way if you

just go through the Caledonian Canal as they call it. It's some of the deepest

water in the UK, I think. I think it's probably one of the deepest sets of water

in the world. I'm not sure about that darkness but it's bloody deep so of course

the interest for a lot of people is going through there is to see the monster but

the sounds if you go on the other side of the lock and you head down you go off

the a road and you go on the b road. I recorded all the way down there and I

stopped at every, you know, every five miles or something. You went around a corner

or something different. I gotta stop, I gotta record this, I gotta record this. And

it's spectacular, but when you do the road to Skye towards the Kaila Lakalsh,

there used to be a ferry, Now there's a bridge that goes across to the island from

the mainland to Skye. It's called the Skye Bridge, I think it is now. You had to

get a ferry when I used to go across here. So you had that magical ride on the

boat, you know, and it wasn't wobbly enough for me to be sick, so it was okay.

But when you go into Skye itself, and you have the coolant hills, And the sunset

comes down and they all go red. It's just spectacular. And the sounds of the oceans

around the side of the island with seabirds and the waters smacking on the cliffs.

There's a place called Staffin where there's a rock that stands up out of the

hillside. And it's So they say it's the old man there that's staring out to the

ocean. You know, the old Druids and the Celtic people have history about it and

they have superstitions. But Skye is a castle on Skye that did really good whisky

as well. But on the grounds of Dunvegan Castle, I think it is Dunvegan Castle.

The sands around the back of the castle where everyone's going into the castle to

have a look at the castle which I really love. I love the history of Scotland but

the landscapes around there is just wow you know. You imagine going into a gift

shop when you go somewhere and you want to buy souvenir and you want to get this

and you want to get that. To me, a souvenir is captured in the soundscape where

you've been, and you just wrap it up on tape and you're just, you know. Is

Dalbeetie a coastal town?

Dalbeetie is borderland, Dalbeetie is along the borders,

so that's close to the Solway first. It's not far from where Robert lives.

that's where I recorded Peregrine Falcons. That's right, fighting with Jack Dawes in

the air. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What a magical thing that was. I always thought that

that was a really sad story about that, which I won't tell that story. You clearly

have to tell it now, but I thought Dalbeety for some reason had the view of the

coast, is that not right no I just love I love that track so much when I think

that's maybe why I thought it was a coastal part because you've got the cry of

those birds in the air and I love the raucous cry of sea birds there's something

the battle in the air feels like another major battle taking place and then the

track that Robert did could brace you feel the energy of these two birds in the

sky like nothing i've ever heard before it's really it's just amazing

See, I've learned so much of this all the time, so anyway, everyone has to listen

to Brace and the aerial acrobatics and the fulcrums, the executing amazing dives.

The way Robert has done that track to the beat of the birds,

you know. It's unbelievable.

That blow just blows my mind. I'm just looking at some of the most. Tell me about

Bass Rock. Oh we're going on the other side. Where's Bass Rock? That is a bird

sanctuary. It's like on the Isle of May as well, where you have sea birds that

protected by the RSPB. Do you have a large Gannet colony,

don't you, on Bass Rock? There's Gannets. Yeah, there's loads of gants.

And that's just a cacophony of noise. There's just so much going on. You imagine

the conversation. It's like Chateau Chateau Chateau Chateau. Yeah, it's just constantly

all day long and the cliffs are just covered in, you know, bird poo and gulls and

gannets and they're attacking each other and kitty wakes and they predated on,

you know, the goals, look for opportunities to get to the eggs and the chicks. It's

nature in a force up there. It's fabulous. I recorded with a guy in a boat on

choppy seas. I was going to say, you must have had to go on a boat to do that

one, and we know how much you hate boats. I did a boat on that. And the same on

the top of Scotland, you know, John O 'Groats, again, there's some fantastic places

and then and then of course if you go out to the the outer hebrides is where the

corn crakes are and the corn crakes were protected back then even then I don't know

what the state of the corn creek is at the moment but I think that's another bird

that's that's really threatened but when you when you hear the corncrate it's like

um it's like a loud cricket it's a it's a trill it's a scream and it's a and

when when I heard the corncrate the first time because you go looking for it

There's a lot of times you go and you've got a you've got a list of the things

you would like to have and I always do a list of what I might encounter and I

never get disappointed if I don't I Get something there's always something that's

that's beautiful. You know to take its place I always have very low expectations

about what I'm gonna record But when I heard the corncrate the first time,

I sh *t myself. Oh my god, there's a corncrate. There's a technical term,

Martin. There's a technical term.

It's just amazing. It's just brilliant. It's like, here I am, here I am,

here I am. But not like that, not in a gentle way. It's like a real grumpy

puppet. I haven't, I mean we can't, we can't in the course of an hour, I can't

see everything. Is there any other place that you really want to talk about from a

sound perspective or from a natural perspective? There's a musical story of Brewer

Falls, there used to be a couple of English people who ran the pub, the Brewer

Falls Inn and of course I had the shop, the spa in Blair Athol and years ago I

was in Auburn and I was going through a CD collection and I heard this Celtic band

called Cappacali and I thought wow they're just brilliant. I asked the person behind

the register who's the band and he said it's a local band called Cappacali So I

bought their albums just brilliant

When they came to England I was in Scotland when I was in Scotland they were down

in England on tour and

This one day The guy comes in the shop, and he said we're having a marquee up at

the pub at the Falls "Would you like to come on Saturday night?" And I said,

"Yeah, of course." Sidhu, you got there and you said, "Kappa Kaley." And I said,

"You've got to be joking, right?" So Karen Matheson and Kappa Kaley, they did the

theme stuff for "Rob Roy" and "The Blood is Strong" and all that stuff.

It's just BBC series, they were fantastic. So I went to, I took Becky and Deb and

me, we went to Brewer Falls and the drummer fell off the stage and broke his arm.

Oh no. And but he got back on the stage and he still kept playing but he was one

arm banging away and we spent the night from about 11 at night until four in the

morning in the pub with Cappacali you know drinking away, and Becky had a signed

picture of them and all there. And going back years later,

when I was in Seattle, I was a friend of a lady who ran the radio show called

Jazz Radio in Seattle, and she said there's a band from Scotland playing at the

tractor tavern tonight. She's fancy going and I said who's the band and said

Cappacali and I said you've got to be kidding me right so we went to the tractor

tavern in Seattle and Karen's on stage and so is one of the guys I can't remember

and they stared at me in the crowd and after they finished Karen come up to me

and she said where have I seen you before and they said Brewer Falls in Scotland

and she said oh we named that Ian Falls because he fell off the stage and broke

himself just a small world just crazy world.

Okay so I'm going to you said you never like to go back to a place more than

once but as we close this off You're allowed to go back to one place or you can

go to a place. You've not recorded in I can't imagine. There's anywhere in Scotland

You've not recorded

So is that You get a trip to Scotland next week. Where are you gonna go?

Isle of Skye

I'm gonna go to Skye But I'm gonna go the other side of the water

where the curlew sing And there was that Croft that Gavin Maxwell had,

and that's actually got burnt down. I would love to be there on a late summer's

night, listening to the soundscapes. That is just...

it's like going to heaven, but you don't have to die.

You can wake up in the morning, I'd like to go back there. Okay,

I like that too. Thank you Martin. That was really lovely. Thank you sweetie.

You can find us on Facebook and Instagram by typing 'The Listening Planet'.

This is Martin Stewart saying thanks for listening.