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After the war Tom Anderson returned to his native islands, while Peerie Willie headed for the mainland, ultimately ending up in London, once again performing both formally and informally with many of the jazz musicians he met while in the RAF, honing his incredible skill and knowledge still further.

Tom Anderson and Peerie Willie Johnson

Shetland's music scene was pretty much as they had left it, a cottage industry in the true sense of the word, with few notable characters, performers or composers, bar perhaps Gideon Stove, a highly skilled violinist and tutor, equally full to overflowing with traditional influences and ideas.

Thanks to this, Gideon wrote many fine Shetland tunes, albeit more or less in the Scottish style, a number of which are standards in the Shetland repertoire to this day. But sadly Gideon was probably the exception to the rule at this time.

While stationed in India Tom had witnessed the value of indigenous music in an independent culture, and realised that Shetland was actually in a very similar, albeit more compact, situation. He was horrified to realise however that his own indigenous culture had all but been lost with the advance of time and increasing external influences, ironically the very factor which had initially helped shape it. He decided to put this to rights if he could.

Tom Anderson Recording

During the 50's he was employed as a local insurance salesman/agent, a job which afforded him the opportunity to travel all over Shetland and gain entry to most of the houses into the bargain. Things were very different back then, with far fewer corporate measurements, targets and deadlines to meet so Tom, armed with a new tape recorder (and the occasional bottle of whiskey as a bribe and 'stimulant') as well as the paraphernalia of the insurance trade, travelled from house to house, not only carrying out his daily duties but also recording many of Shetland's finest, but largely unknown, traditional musicians and their tunes both past and present.

This must have been a long-term and laborious process with the transport infrastructure, especially roads, being far less 'amenable' and accessible than today. Many communities were still largely isolated and many hours of travel was necessary to get from, or to, the 'hub' in Lerwick. But it was out here that the living, 'rich pickings', of Shetland's own musical heritage were still to be found.

Through sheer dedication Tom build up a considerable archive and in truth almost single-handedly (apart from Pat Shuldham Shaw who had previously carried out a similar but more limited exercise in Shetland earlier) saved the remaining elements of Shetland's musical heritage from almost total oblivion

If there was one enemy affecting direct and meaningful progress though it was isolation. Many of the musicians Tom recorded had never even met each other let alone played together, even though some lived no more than a few miles apart. So was simply recording them enough? Not in Tom's mind. Again almost single-handedly he set about a task of bringing them together to meet each other and exchange tunes and styles.

Before this they had, very occasionally, learned the tunes from each other by ear, committing them to memory - tape recorders generally still being a tool of the future. This inevitably led to many localised or individual interpretations of tunes especially as a tune would more than likely be 'brought back' by one person and taught to others entirely from memory. This led to many different versions, varying, sometimes wildly from district to district especially, as some have admitted, if they were learned when "having a dram or two" which, of course could also impair the memory the morning after.

The Forty Fiddlers in their heyday.

In the late 50's Tom achieved his ambition, bringing together over 40 of the communities most noted traditional musicians to meet together, play and exchange tunes and styles, with the catalyst being an intended performance at a Shetland 'Hamefarin' in 1960 - an event created specifically to attract Shetland ex-pats to return to the islands for a collective visit.

Perhaps the most surprising element was just how few tunes they collectively knew, at the outset at least. Again this merely highlighted the gradual erosion of the culture that had taken place and the often wide musical differences that existed from area to area.

The Forty Fiddlers greet the arrival of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother at Lerwick Town Hall - 1960

So the legendary 40 Fiddlers were born, and as a result a culture, not to mention an important way of life, had been safeguarded, at least in the short term. The 40 Fiddlers became a local institution and household name. Perhaps Shetland's first musical super-group they performed to packed venues wherever they went, ultimatley playing, not only during the highly successful Hamefarin, but also for the Queen during her visit to Shetland in 1960.