Robina  (‘Beenie’) the sister of the famed fiddler Magnus Hutchison was born and brought up in the homestead known as the Creads, Brough, in Whalsay, as were her parents. Like many young Whalsay women she worked as a gutter at various herring stations in Shetland  until she married. She was 84 when she recorded just one item for us – the words for the dancing ‘spring’ Fit da Gutters – but she knew and sang many more songs in her younger days, including a number of those which were noted down in the songbook kept by her son William (Willie a’ Tip).  Both Beenie  and her husband Johnie were members of the church choir and read music from sol fah and she was , moreover, considered an excellent dancer especially for the Whalsay version of the Shetland 3-couple reel.  Beenie died in 1974.

Thanks to grand-daughter Rose Williamson for much of this information.