Month: February 2022

Review: ‘Jimmy – Memoirs of My Life as A Piper’ by James H McIntosh MBE

Posted on      by      Leave a comment

When I was asked to review this book of Jimmy McIntosh’s reminiscences, I was delighted to be able to read the story of one of piping’s modern legends. This was the man who was the first Glenfiddich champion, still playing ‘pibroc’h en bord de la mer’ at Cancale in his 90s, a teacher of my teacher, Tom Speirs. I should also declare one other interest – my own father was…

More Review: ‘Jimmy – Memoirs of My Life as A Piper’ by James H McIntosh MBE

Editor’s Notebook: Pipe Band Season/ Cameron Kirk/ Kids Pipes/ James’s Album/ Northern Meeting 1971

Posted on      by      2 Comments

I am told that the form the 2022 pipe band season will take will be decided at a Board of Directors meeting prior to the online RSPBA AGM on March 12. The fact that the AGM itself is online is a worry, although I can see the benefits of the wider reach it gives the Association. A frisson of fear runs through the spine when, on checking the RSPBA calendar,…

More Editor’s Notebook: Pipe Band Season/ Cameron Kirk/ Kids Pipes/ James’s Album/ Northern Meeting 1971

New Contest to Honour the Memory of James Campbell, Kilberry

Posted on      by      Leave a comment

James Campbell had at least two discrete sets of ardent followers. To some, he was a doyen of the piobaireachd world, the son of Archibald Campbell of The Kilberry Book of Ceòl Mòr (who knew all of the tunes in that book off by heart) and a once regular judge of competition. To others he was a superb academic lawyer and much-loved Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, where hetaught Roman…

More New Contest to Honour the Memory of James Campbell, Kilberry

WW2 Piping: John Wilson ‘Not Dead’ and the Reel of the 51st Highland Division

Posted on      by      3 Comments

In January 1940 John Wilson went over to France with his regiment. He was taken prisoner at St Valery in June 1940 and lost his pipe case and all the contents. He spent the rest of the war in prisoner of war camps.  His ‘death’ was reported in the pages of Piping and Dancing magazine but in the issue of the following month it was reported that he was not…

More WW2 Piping: John Wilson ‘Not Dead’ and the Reel of the 51st Highland Division

How Lanarkshire Bands Led the Way in the Development of the ‘Long’ 2/4 Competition March

Posted on      by      1 Comment

Yesterday’s story on the eight-part Maggie Cameron brought to mind an article I wrote 20 years ago about the development of Marches, Strathspeys and Reels from four to six and eight part mega pieces, writes the Editor. It was all to do with giving the pipe band more of a stretch. The top outfits were sick of puny wee Rejected Suitor and four-part Loch Loskin to say nothing of Charles…

More How Lanarkshire Bands Led the Way in the Development of the ‘Long’ 2/4 Competition March