Image credit: The Economist
Here are a couple of snippets from the piece. “Under Mr Robertson’s modest cover was the best storyteller in Scotland.” High praise indeed since he lived in a land renowned for its storytellers. “He was a Traveller, one of that mysterious band who were neither true Romanies, nor settled citizens, but roamed the roads of north-eastern Scotland in tents and carts.” Gypsies you’re thinking, right? No, not at all, but there was probably a kindred spirit in there somewhere I suspect.
“The language [he used] was a mixture of Scots, Doric, Gaelic and Cant, or Traveller dialect; he called it “one ancient tongue”, and passed it on as a kindness, not for money.” Here’s an example from the obit.
“Me Mammy kilt me; me daddie et me;
Me sister Mary picket ma banes,
And buried me ’neath twa marble stanes;
And I grew and I grew into a bonny wee doo.”
“It was hard to believe, though it was true, that the fish-hoose in which he earned his crust was equally endangered. Late in his life, to his huge surprise, he was made a master of Aberdeen University for keeping old traditions alive. Alongside his tales of the road, of ghoulies and elves and the Laird o’ Drum, riding out to see “a weel-faur’d maid/A’shearin’ her father’s barley”, the scholars also recorded his memories of kippers hoisted on tinter-sticks, fish baskets swirled in water, one herring every second dropped into the splitting machine—all that his busy, careful hands were doing, while his head was in Fairyland.”
It’s that last part that really caught my attention and made me realize what I opened this post with. It wasn’t just the stories that were handed down to him that he retold in that wonderful mixed dialect, it was the ones he told of his days at the fish house and of the people who worked there, who gave it its personality, its soul. The kind of stories we would all like to be telling about our businesses. The kind of stories that can connect us with our customers.
Matthew Stibbe, one of my favorite writers, who writes at Bad Language, wrote about this today as well. His post, Words spoken, not written, inspired me to get off my butt, take this out of my to do stack, and bring it to your attention too.
Matthew brought up this point. “It made me think about what we’ve lost as we’ve moved to a written culture and a homogenous TV culture and an Americanised culture. For almost the whole of human history, we have relied on storytellers like Robertson, poets and griots. Perhaps rappers and YouTube performers are their inheritors.” Perish the thought. Rappers as the inheritors of a rich, spoken storytelling history. How many different dialects can you say “mutha’ f*#^a’” in anyway?
Matthew goes on, “My wife is a theatre practitioner – a writer, actor, director and producer – and she has helped me see that there is something magical about the interaction between a performer and an audience. I wonder whether there are any lessons for writers here. For example:
Writing as people really talk
Controlling suspense
Telling stories
Using surprising, rare and unusual vocabulary”
My feeling is that he’s listed four things that can be used as lessons not just for writers but for your business and it’s storytelling as well. “Writing as people talk.” That can go a long way towards helping your business. Lose the “corporate speak.” Come on, nobody really talks like that anyway. Connect with your customers by listening to how they talk and then by talking like they do. And what a great idea to use “surprising, rare and unusual vocabulary” while you’re telling your stories (“mutha’ f*#^a’” and the like excepted of course). What a great way to keep your customer’s interest and engagement levels high.
So, does your company have a Stanley Robertson toiling away? Someone who could be out there helping you to tell your story? Do you have something in place to encourage someone like him? And, thank you Matthew, for your wonderful post and for inspiring me to maybe further the conversation.
