promo film shown in cinemas. While the image showed his fingers moving in a blur, Shand was disappointed to hear the sound track playing a slow air. He was prevented from joining the RAF by a digestive disorder, and spent the war years in the Fire Service. On New Year's Day morning in 1945 he made his first broadcast with "Jimmy Shand and his Band". This was the first of many such BBC radio and television appearances. Works Soon after the war he became a full-time musician, and adopted a punishing life-style later adopted by rock bands. He would play Inverness one night, London the next night and still drive the van back to bed in Dundee. He took his trademark bald head, Buddy Holly spectacles and full kilted regalia, Scottish reels, jigs and strathspeys to Australia, New Zealand and North America, including Carnegie Hall in New York. Now on the EMI/ Parlophone label, he released one single per month in the mid 1950s, including his only top 20 hit in the UK Singles Chart – "The Bluebell Polka" (1955). It was produced by George Martin. He was awarded an MBE in 1962. This period is remembered affectionately by Richard Thompson, who played Shand tunes on his Henry the Human Fly and Strict Tempo! albums. Thompson's Scottish father had been a keen Shand collector. In 1991, Thompson paid tribute to Shand with an original song, "Don't Sit on My Jimmy Shands", from his 1991 album Rumor and Sigh. In 1972, Shand went into semi-retirement. From then he played only small venues in out-of-the-way places for a reduced fee. He was made a freeman of Auchtermuchty in 1974, North East Fife in 1980 and Fife in 1998. He became Sir Jimmy Shand in 1999. His portrait is in the Scottish National Gallery, close to Niel Gow. In 1983, he released a retrospective album with the cheeky title The First 50 Years. At the age of 88, he recorded an album and video with his son, Dancing with the Shands. More than 330 compositions are credited to Jimmy Shand. He recorded more tracks than the Beatles and Elvis Presley combined. In 1985, British Rail named a locomotive Jimmy Shand. He was dissatisfied with the chromatic button-key accordions available on the market in the 1940s so he designed his own one. The Hohner company manufactured the "Shand Morino" until the 1970s. He is