Cape Breton's Magazine

they had no piano or no guitar. There'd be two fiddles, that's all they had to play the music. And a big crowd, too, thousands around there. (Where would the people dance?) They had a big stage. They'd get carpenters and they'd put up a stage, a floor. (Just for one picnic?) Oh yeah. They could return the lumber, though. I think that's how they did it. They put a rail around it, and they put a few benches around it, and the ones that didn't want to dance could sit down there and look at them. Some of them would be perhaps 30 feet. It'd be in some field. Just some? thing like the Bill Lynch Circus--when they'd be through, they'd take it all down. No microphone. None of that. Fiddlers had to produce that music, and a fellow call? ing square sets--he'd be with the dancers. The fiddlers'd be sitting to the side. They'd have to sit down, because they had to play there from perhaps 10 o'clock in the morning till 12 that night, before the thing would be over. Same fiddlers. They'd get some breaks. One fellow'd keep on play? ing for the dancers, and the other fel? low 'd go have his break. And he'd come back and he'd start playing, and the other fellow'd go. They got $5 for that. That was big money then. (Paul: So the young kids were involved in dancing and liked the music.) Yeah. That's what they got used to. But now.... Of course, they had to have their day, too. Rock-and-roll. That's what they like, an3nA'ay. For photos: our thanks to Henry Fortune's daughter, Emma Fortune Cordeau, and to Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Mac? Neil (his nephew); and to Dougie MacPhee for the early photo of Johnny Wilmot. Unfortunately, we do not know the source of the Joe Confiant photographs at this time. MacLean Industrial SuddIv '' COMPANY LIMITED '|J INDUSTRIAL - MINE AND MILL SUPPLIES "Serving Atlantic Canada' 55'59 Bilby St., P.O.Box 1730, N, Postal Stn,, Halifax, N, S. B3K 1V4 V (902)454-7413 WE SELL SERVICE AND QUALITY PRODUCTS P,0.Box 1390, 207 Kings Rd., Sydney, N. S, BIP 6K3 (902)564-5540 Grandview Industrial Park, P.O.Box 2292, Station C, Saint John, N. B, E2L 3V6 (506)657-1296 Connors Office Products Office Supplies Office Furniture NEW & USED Office Machines & Calculators Now Available: TYPEWRITER RENTALS (902)562-7900 386 Charlotte St., Sydney [.Take a Value home today- - , .', - _ CAPE BRETON SHOPPING PLAZA -- SYDNEY RIVER ''A 0/Kt I Now WG ArG 3 Mayflower mall - grand lake road , 'Skiulrn I i'v'vv ??vv'i'iww pQj'.j. hawkesbury SHOPPING CENTRE -- PORT HAWKESBURY WJOOIW B ALL OPEN 'TILL 10 PM DAILY DEPARTMENT STORES (66)