“The Meeting of the Waters” was devised to commemorate the 1964-65 Summer School held in Wanganui, the ‘River City’.
In a message to the strathspey mailing list (on 23/10/2019) Iain Boyd wrote:
Note re bars 1-8:
In the first edition of “The Strathtay Album” the diagram clearly shows first woman and second man passing by left shoulders before dancing out to the sidelines at the end of the reel of four.
However, after the dance became popular with the release of Frank Reid’s recording on “Dance With The London Highland Club”, I changed the ending so that first woman and second man pass by right shoulders and dance directly across the set.
I did this because I noticed that the less experienced dancers were having difficulty getting out to the sidelines. The diagram was changed in a reprint of the collection, but, at the time, there was no way I could easily disseminate the change.
I prefer the second way of finishing the reel of four.
However, as the original way is probably ingrained in many dancer’s minds I am prepared to accept that there are now two ways of finishing the reel of four in this dance - an original and a subsequent way.
Consequently, dancers and teachers should check which ending is being danced in their local area.