ABC, My Grannie Caught a Flea: Scots Children's Songs and Rhymes - Hardcover

Ewan McVicar, one of Scotland's best-known storytellers and song writers, has collected songs in over 40 Scottish schools to create this new condensed compendium of the 'hidden' songs of Scots childhood. Adults may lament that today's Scots children do not sing in the playground, but the kids know better. As he demonstrated in his critically acclaimed Doh Ray Me, When Ah Wis Wee, hundreds of hilarious, energetic, surreal, nonsensical and alarming rhymes and songs are still in use, some over 200 years old, others as new as today's TV ads. It is a fascinating account of Scots childrens' lyric lore and investigates what has been lost and what has replaced it, looking at the arcane riches of the past as well as the absurd glories of today.

Ewan McVicar was born in Inverness in 1941. He worked as a banker in Scotland and Africa, then as a guitar teacher in the USA. On his return to Scotland, he was employed in various areas of social work before becoming a self-employed storyteller and songwriter. He has performed in over 200 schools and in castles, museums, folk festivals and other venues across Britain, as well as in Canada, the USA, Holland and Russia. He lives in Linlithgow.