[Joseph Armitage is reflecting on his years as an itinerant odd-jobsman and how ‘the south west corner of Scotland was entirely different to anything that I had experienced before’ p. 303]

In the English towns and cities anyone playing an instrument was regarded as something of a nuisance, in fact some towns forbade it. Some Scottish towns did likewise, notably Edinburgh. 

Here on the Galloway Coast anyone playing a fiddle, an accordian [sic],a concertina, or even a Mouth-organ was welcome. Everyone seemed to see them as the travelling minstrels of old, and everyone would give a penny or two to a musician.