Sheriff Maryam Labaki

There’s a brand-new Scottish musical coming to Glasgow this August, based on a remarkable story drawn straight from our legal past.

The Tumbling Lassie musical tells the tale of a young girl gymnast, known to history only by her nickname, “the tumbling lassie”. She performed as an act in public entertainments put on by Mr Reid, a “mountebank” or travelling showman. She was being worn out by having to dance in Reid’s shows and ran away, taking refuge with the Scots of Harden, a family from the Scottish Borders. Reid sued the Scots and produced a written contract, showing that he had “bought” the tumbling lassie from her mother. He argued that the tumbling lassie belonged to him as his property.

The Court of Session in Edinburgh heard the case in January 1687. The court dismissed Reid’s claim, impliedly declaring the tumbling lassie free. The only surviving report of the case contains the trenchant observation: “But we have no slaves in Scotland, and mothers cannot sell their bairns…”

It would indeed be wonderful if that were in fact true. According to statistics held by the UK Home Office there were 17,004 potential victims of modern slavery recorded via the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) in 2023 – a 20 per cent increase from the previous year. 

The most common exploitation types were labour exploitation (34 per cent), criminal exploitation (26 per cent) and sexual exploitation (11 per cent). Last year in Scotland alone, there was a 36 per cent increase in NRM referrals with the number of women and girls identified as victims up by 61 per cent.

All these statistics underline the need to stay vigilant, which is exactly what The Tumbling Lassie Committee has done for the past decade. The committee, made up of volunteers drawn principally from the Faculty of Advocates and Sheriffs sitting across Scotland, marks its 10th anniversary this year.

Since its inception, the committee has worked tirelessly to raise awareness and fundraise for charities fighting against modern slavery and people trafficking and to help survivors in Scotland and beyond. During that time, over £120,000 has been raised for the charities the campaign supports, together with events which help raise awareness of this human tragedy.

The musical, produced by the Theatre Alliance group in Glasgow, will help raise further awareness. The Tumbling Lassie herself, lost to history without even a recorded name, becomes the centre of the story – not merely a victim, but a symbol of resilience, freedom and the enduring fight against human trafficking and modern slavery.

It challenges us to reflect on how far we have come – and how far we still have to go – in safeguarding the rights and dignity of the most vulnerable in society.

The musical is more than a window to the past and a contemporary take on a historical case – it is a call to action. Today, people around the world still suffer in conditions of slavery and human trafficking, and some of them are right here within our borders.

If you’d like to find out more about the valuable contributions made by the Tumbling Lassie Committee, please visit www.tumblinglassie.com.

Sheriff Maryam Labaki is an advocate and chair of the Tumbling Lassie Committee​. This article first appeared in The Scotsman.