LONG GONE LONESOME BLUES - THE THOMAS FRASER STORY (Page 5)
Unfortunately, rougher times were ahead. On October 19th 1973 Thomas ran aground on the Waster Skerrie off Burra. As he clung to the Skerrie his boat, 'The Active', was smashed on the rocks. Thomas wept as he heard the last splutters of the engine beneath the sea - the boat was not insured. As the tide rose, the icy-cold sea started to pass over his head. Luckily, Jim Anderson had seen a man on the Skerrie and with time running out, word got to two Burra boats which were nearby. Thomas was thrown a lifeline and dragged aboard, semi-conscious. The Doctor claimed that he was extremely lucky to escape with his life. Having an immense dislike for hospitals, Thomas discharged himself the following day.
The following year was brighter after daughter May's marriage and the arrival of grandchildren Karl and Rhonda. However, another accident at sea on 'The Branch' in early 1977 was to have more dire consequences. Thomas was struck in the face while dredging scallops. Raymie Cowie saw the boat drifting and seeing the extent of his injury, took Thomas ashore at Whiteness to phone for an ambulance. Thomas was flown to Aberdeen for treatment. Upon return, Thomas was tormented by headaches and played little thereafter. The last recordings he made were in April 1977, before the accident. Despite the constant pain Thomas was suffering, he refused to go to the Doctor. Thomas Fraser died on the night of 6th January 1978 at Setter aged 50. Phyllis continued to live alone and stoically tend to the croft at Setter. A third grandchild, Fraser Thomas was born in 1981. Phyllis was to pass away four years later on 8 th May 1985.
Transferring the reels developed into a harrowing task. It seemed to me that on this fragile tape were the entire history of my family. Many of the reels were at the end of their natural lives and very brittle. The slightest false move and you could wipe out a song, possibly the only surviving version of that song. It was fascinating but at the same time enormously stressful.
Despite this, I returned south on the plane with 4 master CDs feeling happier. However, doubts in my own mind were festering. I had the nagging feeling that better results still could be achieved. The only way to prove this would be to send the tapes south to a specialist engineer. Earlier on, I had decided against this because of the risk-factor. I was highly dubious of our Postal service and couldn't bear to think of the scenario if the tapes had got lost.
I tried to weigh things up in my mind. One thing for sure, I would not have been able to live with myself if I released the CD having not been sure of the quality of the songs contained therein. And what use would the reels be if they could not be released on a usable format? There was no argument. As an experiment, I decided to send four reels down to a company named Pristine Audio in Faversham, Kent.
In remarkably quick time, a CD arrived. Pristine Audio lived up to their name. In a few days, it's proprietor Andrew Rose had achieved better sound than I had done in months. Of course, Andrew was a Senior sound engineer at the BBC. I decided to send all the reels for the CD south to put my mind at rest.