Lizzie Higgins was an Aberdeenshire

Aberdeenshire

Aberdeenshire is one of the 32 unitary council areas in Scotland and a lieutenancy area.The present day Aberdeenshire council area does not include the City of Aberdeen, now a separate council area, from which its name derives. Together, the modern council area and the city formed historic...

 ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

 singer.

Born Elizabeth Ann Higgins in Guest Row, Aberdeen

Aberdeen

Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....

, she was the daughter of settled Traveller

Scottish Travellers

Scottish Travellers, or the people termed loosely Gypsies and Tinkers in Scotland, consist of a number of diverse, unrelated communities, with groups speaking a variety of different languages and holding to distinct customs, histories, and traditions...

s the piper Donty Higgins and the singer Jeannie Robertson

Jeannie Robertson

Jeannie Robertson was a Scottish folk singer.-Hamish Henderson and Alan Lomax:It is not known where Jeannie Robertson was born but she did live at 90, Hilton Street in Aberdeen, where a plaque now commemorates her. Like many of the Scottish Travellers from Aberdeen, Glasgow and Ayrshire, she went...

. In 1941, after her school was twice bombed, Lizzie moved with her mother to the rural town of Banchory

Banchory

Banchory is a burgh or town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, lying approximately 18 miles west of Aberdeen, near where the Feugh River meets the River Dee.- Overview :...

, where the local children bullied her for her heritage. She was so unhappy in this environment that she left school at fifteen despite the pleasure she gained from studying. She moved back to Aberdeen to fillet fish and take seasonal agricultural labouring.

She married Brian Youlden and did not take up public singing until 1967 because she did not wish to distract public attention from her mother. She died of throat cancer in 1993.

Discography

• The Princess of the Thistle (12" LP record
  LP record
  The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
  
  . Topic 12 T 185. Mono
  Monaural
  Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction is single-channel. Typically there is only one microphone, one loudspeaker, or channels are fed from a common signal path...
  
  . Recorded by Bill Leader
  Bill Leader
  Bill Leader is an English recording engineer and record producer. He is particularly associated with the British folk music revival of the 1960s and 1970s, producing records by Davey Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Frank Harte and others....
  
  , notes by Peter Hall. London, Topic Records
  Topic Records
  Topic Records is a British folk music label, which played a major role in the second British folk revival. It began as an offshoot of the Workers' Music Association in 1939, making it the oldest independent record label in the world.-History:...
  
  Ltd., 1969)
• "Up and Awa' wi' the Laverock (Topic, 1975)
• In Memory of Lizzie Higgins 1929 - 1993 (Musical Traditions, 2006)