Small Grants Fund 2026 – an update from recipients Miwa Nagato-Apthorp and Craig Aitchison

Miwa is a songwriter based in Hawick. Craig is a Poet and Educator from the Scottish Borders who was awarded the New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust. 

Miwa said, “ I’d just like to extend thanks from myself and Craig for the opportunity that this fund provided us to collaborate- it was a truly joyful experience start to finish and we are both very pleased with the work we’ve created.  

The Small Grants Fund afforded Craig and I time and focus to collaborate in ways that were new for both of us – I have never worked with a poet before and Craig has never had his poetic work put to music, the resulting piece is one that we are both really proud of. 

Our objective was to create a new musical piece, in Scots language, about the lesser-known history of the Irish workforce who constructed the Waverly trainline. We did just that- the resultant song- The Mowdie Man has already been performed: in Norway, at Cottier’s Theatre, Glasgow; Sidmouth Folk Festival; Fringe By The Sea and other venues during my summer tour. It has received very positive feedback and I plan to feature it on an upcoming album.  

Without support from CABN, it would have been difficult for Craig and I to find the resources, time and focus required to research and write this piece.  I have wanted to write a song about the Waverly Line Navvies since I first heard tell of them several years ago but always struggled to figure out how to approach it because the subject felt very sensitive. Craig’s expertise with Scots language and his incredible poetic sensitivity and integrity were exactly what was needed for this song to come to be.  

I have shared a copy of the lyrics to The Mowdie Man and also a beautiful piece titled Komorebi that Craig wrote, inspired by our collaboration, about the act of collaboration itself. Komorebi paints a lovely picture of the day where we escaped the heat and went into the forest to write The Mowdie Man- we embarked from town with ideas and returned from the forest with a song. The Navvies deserve to be remembered, and we hope that our song honours them appropriately.  We have developed a working relationship which feels inspiring and full of possibility.” 

The Mowdie Man

Komorebi