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Up the Hill

from The Railway by Hamish Napier

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6. UP THE HILL [H Napier]
The Balmenach Hornpipe / O'er Drumochter

‘Up the hill’ is what Highland Railwaymen call the climb up to the highest mainline summit of British railways. Says Jimmy, "you’re coming up from Blair Atholl to Drumochter Summit, 1484 feet. Many's the day, if you had a bad Black 5 no' steaming right, you’d struggle up to the top, 17 miles of a dead slog, without a break, and sit at the very top of the hill blowing up to try to get the steam up and get some water in the boiler before heading down the hill. We used to say 'ah well, at least we're the highest railwaymen in Britain!'" Jimmy was often the fireman for driver Willie Wilkie, a very comical lad who’d jokingly mimic the rhythms of the engine’s connecting rods as their dear old Barney engine struggled up the hill. He’d shout, “OCH I CANNA! OCH I CANNA!” Then as they reached the top and dropped over the other side he’d chant, “I KNEW I COULD! I KNEW I COULD! I KNEW I COULD!” The second tune here is for heading O’er Drumochter!

The first tune, The Balmenach is a hornpipe. Railways seem to be a popular subject matter for the titles of hornpipes: The Locomotive Hornpipe, The Train Journey North, The Steam Train Hornpipe, to name but a few! The Balmenach is the comical-looking Barclay 'pug' saddle tank engine at Balmenach Distillery, where my great-great-grandfather John Findlay was the Head Distiller around 1910. Only a few miles from Grantown East, the Balmenach distillery is still in operation, now producing beautiful gin. It was one of a number of Speyside whisky distilleries that had its own private rail sidings off the Speyside Line. Word has it that, more than occasionally, a percentage of Speyside whisky would somehow go missing along the line, particularly in the more deserted sections of the line at night!

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from The Railway, released August 2, 2018
by Hamish Napier

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Hamish Napier Grantown On Spey, UK

Hamish is a multi-instrumentalist and composer from the Scottish Highlands.

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