Belle Stewart

Belle Stewart (18 July 1906 – 4 September 1997) became known as a Scottish traditional singer.

The general public knew little about Belle Stewart until 2006, when her daughter, Sheila Stewart, wrote the biography Queen Amang the Heather: the Life of Belle Stewart. Sheila Stewart corrects the frequently cited birthdate 17 July to the 18th.

Belle McGregor was born on the banks of the River Tay at Caputh, near Blairgowrie, into a family of Highland Scottish Travellers, who lived in bow-tents (similar to dome tents). As a result of their life-style, the whole family received much insult and abuse. Belle's father died when she was only 9 months old. Afraid that social workers might take her children from her, her mother stopped travelling and settled in Perthshire. The McGregor family tried to teach Belle how to read palms (fortune telling), but she didn't take to this. The family frequently went to Northern Ireland to do pearl-fishing. In the evenings they would gather at ceilidhs to exchange folk songs.

Belle's version of "If I Was a Blackbird" inspired Alex Stewart, a bagpiper, to propose to her. They married in secret on 17 August 1925 at Ballymoney in Northern Ireland. As married second cousins, they for a time had fears that this would affect the health of their children, but such fears proved unfounded.

Belle married into a rich heritage. Alex's father Jock Stewart (1869–1954) had become a champion piper, supposedly the subject of the popular Scots and Irish drinking-song "Jock Stewart, A Man You Don't Meet Every Day" recorded by The Dubliners and The Pogues among others. Jock's father, "Big Jimmy" Stewart, also a champion piper, allegedly died when beaten to death by a group of Irishmen he met on his way home from busking in the Pitlochry area — because he refused to play a tune they requested. Alex's mother, Nancy Campbell, reputedly had both a grandfather (Andy Campbell) and a grandmother sentenced to death by hanging in the 18th century for the crime of travelling.

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