So we wrote to Mrs Kennedy-Fraser, the famous collector of Hebridean and Scottish songs, and asked her to recommend some one who could sing her “Songs of the Hebrides”, and she put us in touch with Hugh Mackay, who arrived from the Far North when we were in the throes of our last week of rehearsals, in April, 1921.  He had only once been in London before …

Some of us were already familiar with the songs, but we were none of us prepared for the sweetness of voice and tenderness of expression with which he sang to us; we were transported far from London into some remote place of hills and seas, for he sang naturally and without effort the Gaelic songs as only one born to the language can sing them.  There was then no doubt in our minds that the League had made a discovery.