File: macdonaldallan06-oh-hectorsdancehall_M.mp3
Speakers:
AM – Allan MacDonald
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
AM: And then when I was 15, we cut for the Hall, the Dance Hall we had back here – Dad and I cut the wood together one winter with the buck saw and the axe and the old horse and the sleigh, that's all we had. And we cut enough to – Took it out that winter, and that spring we hauled it to the mill and got it sawed, and built a big dance hall that he was wishin' he had. We thought it was pretty big but it was only 24x40 [feet]. A lot of houses twice as big as that now. And then we started playin' every Thursday, and it was that full nobody had hardly any room to dance. So we had to pick another night. So, we picked a Monday night to get clear of the other parties around the community, and we played Mondays and Thursdays and they were both pretty full. Thursday would be a bigger night but Monday was pretty good, too. But it was quite a tradition, playin' for twelve years, out here.
KP: So what year would that have started.?
AM: I started, first year probably I just played guitar out there but I was pickin' up the fiddle then too. I started the fiddle when I was only 15. So perhaps the second year I used to play for the odd set. And Dad thought it was great; he could have a little break which he never had before. So unless somebody come along like Lee Crane or somebody: he'd play for a set.
KP: You mentioned on Sundays people would come back…
AM: Yeah, like the whole family; it was as family thing. The girls a lot of them played piano and guitar. So Sunday we couldn't wait to get back out in the Hall there. We'd have our dinner here at 12 o'clock, and then at 1:30 we'd all head back out to the Hall and open her up and start playing music again. And one by one the cars would start stoppin' and droppin' in. We'd have the place half full by four o'clock. It was fun! The odd time they might have a [square] set but just sittin'in and listenin' to music that was the big thing. And it would be singin' a little bit too, like the girls was always great to sing. I have nine sisters and they're all beautiful singers: harmony and stuff was beautiful.
People called it Hector MacDonald=s Dance Hall.
KP: What other fiddlers played there?
Some local players like Francis MacDonald, Francis MacKinnon (left-handed fiddler from Dromore), the Chaissons, Lee Crane. But there were a lot of parties goin= on in the summer.
9:50
KP: Were there other dance halls within 10 miles
There was a barn dance on Burns= Road in Morrell Rear, and another one in Fortune. There were also ones in Lorne Valley. The last in the area one was down near Francis MacDonald=s house in Morrell, it closed in the 90s. AM played fiddle there for three years.
12:00
