Succession planning is everything when its comes to changing Grade 1 pipe majors. Get it right and the prizes continue unabated. Wrong, and a once great outfit tumbles and expires. That’s what happened with Muirhead & Sons in the ’70s. There are more modern examples too.
One of the most successful handovers came when Tully Senior handed over to Tully Junior at St Laurence O’Toole a few years back. Alen continued the success of dad Terry with nary a blip. At Boghall, the two Ross’s, Walker and Harvey, did the changeover biz with the same aplomb three or four years ago. If anything, Ross 2 has enjoyed more success than Ross 1, the one laying the foundation for the other.
Have Field Marshal got it right? Only time will tell. The way Richard’s retiral was announced did nothing for the band’s reputation I might say. What foolish counsel they heed.
However, the actual transition has been perfectly synchronised. P/Sgt, now P/M, Matt Wilson, has been in the number two post for several years. He’s run the Scottish band practice to great effect. As I said in my report from Dumbarton in July, there is no finer pipe corps in Grade 1.
Matt knows how the band works, how Richard ticked, and what brought FM success over many decades. Continue that, so the thinking goes, and the prizes are guaranteed.
Of course it is never that simple. Wilson is not Parkes; he is his own man. He will have his own ideas about how to take on the might of Inveraray, Boghall, SLOT, SFU, and the upcoming Shotts and Fife Police. But all the signs are that we will continue to enjoy top class pipe band music from Field Marshal Montgomery during P/M Wilson’s tenure.
‘We must constantly assert that nothing is over…everything is beginning…’
George Sherriff Contest
Bob Worrall reports: The 28th Annual George Sherriff Memorial Invitational Competition will take place at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Hamilton, Ontario, on November 16. It’s an amazing day of great piping by the top ten amateur pipers from Canada and the United States. The website is being updated, but in the meantime, put the date in your calendar. Here are the confirmed players and adjudicators:
Gillian Blaney (ACPBA), Ben Elliot (MWPBA), Liam Forrest (BCPA), Colin Forrest (BCPA), Malachi Johannsen (WUSPBA), Thomas McCollum (MWPBA), Henry Paluch (PPBSO), Magnus Stone (EUSPBA), Adam Tingskou (PPBSO), Mic Trenor (EUSPBA). Judges: Peter Aumonier, Mike Cusack, Jim Stack
Band from 1975
Thanks to Betty Anne Muckle in Canada for forwarding this magazine front from nearly 50 years ago. Can anyone identify the band and the personnel? Email editor@pipingpress.com .
Pibroch by the Sea
The pictures from Cancale a couple of weeks ago didn’t really do the event justice. It’s not only in Scotland that heavy rain can put a damper on things. So just show what a spectacular backdrop there really is on a fine day here is a picture of organiser Remy Le Castrec with the Mont St Michel in the background.
