This article from Donald’s archive is from the Oban Times newspaper. No date is given but it is believed to be from the 1970s.
A few weeks ago when reporting on the Northern Meeting competitions [writes their piping correspondent] I speculated on the name of Donald Morrison’s jig ‘Donald, Willie and His Dog’.
The name fascinated me in the same way as Willie Ross’s tune ‘The Old Ruins’ did after hearing that it commemorated a mouthful of rotten teeth possessed by an old man in Helmsdale.
I asked Donald to tell me about it and this he did in a letter as follows: ‘My family have a croft in Locheynort, South Uist, which adjoins that of Willie Morrison’s family. [Willie the champion piper and now senior adjudicator.]
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‘While on holiday there last summer a pet ewe, which never ventured far from the house, should have been sheared weeks before but every time an attempt was made to catch the pet it wandered miles away.
‘This strange instinct of the animal was of more interest to the neighbours than the rockets being blasted off by the Army a few miles away.’
[The rocket range referred to lies near West Geirinish, to the west of Loch Bee and Rueval on South Uist. Military testing is co-ordinated from headquarters at Balivanich Airport on Benbecula, the island between North and South Uist.]
‘One day my brother and I planned a ‘military style’ operation to capture the ewe. With the assistance of his dog we managed to manouevre the animal on to a small peninsula jutting out to sea and from where there appeared to be no escape.
‘However, we hadn’t bargained for the speed and stamina of the cornered ewe and, with a startling dash, it made good its escape.
‘Of course the blame for this ignominious failure was placed squarely on the dog and it was instantly dismissed.
‘Just then in the distance I saw Willie Morrison with his dog, Finn, and called on his assistance. This time the pet was not so lucky and after an exhausting sprint, we captured the pet ewe.
‘I sat down to recuperate and what is now the third part of a jig I had been working on came to me. Later I thought an appropriate name for it would be ‘Donald (myself), Willie (Morrison) and his Dog (Finn)’
