Posted by: revk | 5 March, 2008

Bondagers

Last night we were privileged to get a sneak preview of Studio 32’s latest production, Bondagers, and what a treat it turned out to be.  Claire as Totty is a star in the making her transformation on stage to the simple peasant girl was captivating.

For those of you unfamiliar with Bondagers, it is a play by Sue Glover which has become a modern classic.  Set in the Borders of Scotland on the large working farms it is a tale from the 1860’s when women, bondagers, were hired by farm hands to work on the farms they in turn had been hired to work on.  The work was hard you needed strong arms, strong hands, strong legs and strong shoulders to pick and sow the potatoes and neeps, and the pay frugal 10p a day.  You didn’t know were you might be sleeping and would soon be moving on, looking for more work.  Life was hard and those who led the life built strong relationships.  The play explores many of the relationships but it is the story of Totty which draws things to a climax. 

There are moments of humour, some wonderful Scottish songs, dancing all rolled into this glimpse of life that the bondagers lived.  The play is wonderful, Studio 32’s production of it is superb, opening night tonight is a sell out but somehow there are still tickets available for Friday and Saturday night, so if you are in reach of East Kilbride, enjoy a good play and are looking for something to do then I suggest you get in touch with the Arts Centre sooner rather than later.

Posted in scottish borders, theatre-concerts

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Responses

I don’t know whether the title ‘Bondagers’ is meant literally to mean that these were bonded servants, but I find it amazing that bonded servitude (slavery in all but name) existed in the mines in Scotland well into the middle of the nineteenth century and long after slavery had been abolished in Britain.

By: Lissa T on 5 March, 2008
at 7:04 pm

The term apparently comes from the fact that bondagers were poor women without a man to provide for them, which meant that they were bound to manual work as they were not educated. The biggest goal for a bondager was to learn to sew so that they might get some work in a house. They certainly didn’t see themselves as slaves, more like servants without the security of knowing where they would be living in the next month or two, they were paid, not well but paid never the less; they were contracted, in the case of those working on the farms for a season; and they could if they wished leave before their contracted time was up, however if they did they knew it would be difficult for them to get further work. For us in comfort looking back it does seem a bit like slavery, however they were no more slaves than those who any other lowly job of the time.

By: revk on 6 March, 2008
at 10:17 am

I think that I may have been a bit eliptical in my original comment by putting my question (very thoroughly answered, thank you) in the same sentence as an observation about the astounding fact (gleaned from another source) of the bonded servitude of feudal societies continuing in some Scottish mines until relatively recent times.

By: Clarissa Turner on 6 March, 2008
at 9:47 pm

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