Bronwyn Bain

I can’t even remember the first time I went to Traynor's. But I do remember the ambiance, and there was a feeling of being ‘home’ of being where I belonged

There was a big man at the door who terrified me, and then the singers whom I loved. I was sixteen and everyone was my hero, singing beautiful ancient songs that triggered a memory deep within my soul.

I wonder why I was so entranced by this music. “The Great Silkie” was one of my favorites and twenty years later when I visited the Orkney Islands, the names of the bays from the Great Silkie, beckoned me as I stood on the stony shores of Orkney. Where every second person held my name-sake (Bain). I knew that somewhere in the dim past there was a connection. At the burial ground Maese Howe with the Viking graffiti, I felt a knowing of the mystery of this ancient island and the songs that found their way to the distant shores of Australia.

“Bain’ the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker; the paving on the streets of Kirkwall echoed to the sounds of my ancestors footsteps, and the songs from Traynor’s filled my mind once more.

Back at Traynor’s I remember the whaling songs sung by Danny and Gordon, and the songs of Scotland and England sung by Martyn whose voice still reminds me today of these special times, along with the sea shanties still sung by ‘Captain Spoon”.

Brian Mooney with his mop of curly hair wild and Irish lilt. The melodies danced across the room with the romantic songs of sadness like the ‘Castle of Drumore’. David Lumsden with his banjo and fresh smiling face entrancing a room of coffee slurping patrons. The spoons standing up straight in the thick murky residue of hard-boiled coffee. This was utopia. The place to be.

Margaret Roadnight and many more introduced me to a richness of living. The few times I braved the stage there and trembled before the audience, but this was my first step into the arts and a life long association with music, theatre and painting.