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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Compact Disc in a plastic-free cardboard case with an accompanying 20-page booklet. Stunning Shetland landscape photography forms the backdrop to written stories behind all thirteen tracks, and a glossary of over 300 Shetland words helps with lyric translation.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Lasses Trust In Providence via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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about

In May 2015 I was asked by friends in Scalloway to write a song with a Norwegian flavour for a concert marking the seventieth anniversary of the end of World War Two. On visiting Scalloway Museum in search of inspiration, Jan Baalsrud’s story stood out as a striking aspect of Shetland Bus special operations. This wartime group’s purpose was to transfer agents in and out of Norway and provide them with supplies.

In 1943 a whaling vessel called the Brattholm and its twelve man crew sailed nine hundred miles from Scalloway in Shetland to Troms in Norway with explosives aboard to blow up German supplies and organise a resistance network. On landing, the sailors made contact with a reputedly trustworthy local merchant who wasn’t the man they thought he was and betrayed them to the Germans. A warship swooped, the Brattholm’s crew blew her up in an act of self defence, and all aboard ended up in the surrounding icy water. They swam ashore but only one man, 25-year-old trained instrument-maker Jan Baalsrud, evaded capture and made a successful bid for freedom. With a bullet-wounded foot he set out on an eighty mile journey across icy mountains and water to reach freedom at the neutral Swedish border. He was helped by people in occupied Norway who put their lives at risk by giving Baalsrud shelter, food, clothing and transport. He was finally delivered into Sweden on a Lapp reindeer sled, having survived snow-blindness, gangrene, frost-bite, being buried alive for five days in an avalanche, and losing most of his toes. After ten weeks of recuperation he recovered and a few months later flew back to England to report for duty. His achievement became legendary and King Olav V of Norway sent an inscribed wreath of flowers to his funeral. His ashes were buried in the same grave as one of the men who helped him in Norway, and an 80-mile trek along his escape route takes place each July over nine days, a tribute to his helpers

lyrics

The Shetland Bus headquarters
They set our five day course
Nine hundred miles to Tromsø
The Brattholm would traverse
A cargo of explosives
To damage German stores
In ’43 was loaded
On Scalloway’s fair shores

Hands across the hills and
Hearts across the sea
Through ice and wind and weather
Our spirits they soar free

March 28th we landed
In Toftefjord’s snug bay
A merchant he betrayed us
A warship sailed our way
Our fuse it was ignited
The Brattholm was no more
All twelve desperate seamen
Swam through the ice to shoreS

Behind beach rocks I cowered
And shot my hunters low
To Sweden then my sights turned
Through eighty miles of snow
A toe lost to a bullet
I fled one hundred then
Alone I faced the journey
Mourning now my menS

On stepping stones of kindness
I painfully edged south
A host of nameless heroes
Brought help by word of mouth
Snow-blind, frostbit and wounded
A month in snowdrift bound
Five days lost in an avalanche
Was where my strength I found

Pursued up to the border
Then saved by reindeer sled
Recovery took ten weeks
Confined throughout to bed
Escape was tinged with sadness
Sweet liberty at last
But Norway’s freedom beckoned
And friendships have held fast

credits

from Lasses Trust In Providence, track released December 10, 2018
Composition, vocals, fiddle: Claire White
Guitar: Robbie Leask

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about

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Claire White Scotland, UK

Claire White is an award-winning Shetland singer-songwriter and fiddler. She learned music from Dr Tom Anderson and has been performing and teaching internationally for twenty-five years. She has previously played in Australia, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, the USA, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Sardinia, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Slovenia, Estonia, Poland, Ireland and the UK. ... more

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