I was very interested to read the articles on General Thomason’s ‘Ceol Mor’. When I came to Aberdeen at the raw age of 21, I had no knowledge of it. The only piobaireachd books I had heard of were the Kilberry Book and William Ross’s, an old copy of which we had in the family home.
I now have a copy of ‘Ceol Mor’ which once belonged to Sheriff Grant of Rothiemurchus, one of the leading lights of the Piobaireachd Society in the early days. The front cover is pictured above. The Grant Coat of Arms is shown inside; Thomason’s grandfather was J Grant of Elchies.
By Duncan Watson
The book is in very poor condition as you can see from the photograph. Its provenance may be of interest.
Bob Nicol often spoke of ‘Ceol Mor’ and how John MacDonald (Inverness) made use of it. Bob had a copy but it went missing having probably loaned it to somebody. Later he came into the possession of the book featured.
It may have also been in the hands of Bob Brown at times too. As everyone knows the Bobs were employees on the Royal Estate, Balmoral, for about 40 years and very often were together going over tunes.
(Norman Meldrum, Braemar, a pupil of Brown’s for more than 25 years, was sometimes present at those sessions. Apparently they were very intense, the Bobs passing comments on each others’ playing. Oh that the walls of the bothy could speak!)
On Bob Nicol’s passing, Norman Matheson, a pupil, inherited the book featured. He also had a copy of the EP Publishing edition which came out in the early ’70s and was very much in favour of it. I also obtained one. It was a ‘must have’ for all piobaireachd students.
The introduction alone is worth any expense readers have in obtaining a copy. Here is a sample page:
Sheriff Grant was the editor of Book 1 of the the second series of the Piobaireachd Society’s books. Early copies show that it was not marked as Book 1, probably as in those days it may have been doubtful if the series was to continue beyond the first book.
The cost of that book was seven shillings and six pence. A lot of money when you consider the weekly wage for a working man would have been about about £2 or £3 per week. But I digress.
I came into possession of the Sheriff’s copy of ‘Ceol Mor’ in a rather simple way. One Sunday afternoon Norman Matheson phoned and requested some help replacing light bulbs in his house as he was unable to climb ladders.
The work done, Norman instructed, ‘open that drawer and take out that tattered book’. This was the Shf. Grant ‘Ceol Mor’. We looked at the sorry state of it and went through one or two pieces on the practice chanter. On getting home Norman phoned and said he wanted to pass on the book to me. It was refused.
A week or two later, when visiting again, he suggested getting his bagpipe going. He had a problem with focal dystonia and had not played for a long time and the pipes were not in great shape. I got them going and played a few tunes among which were the main thrusts of MacLeod of Colbeck and Scarce of Fishing. Apparently they were recognisable!
Well, as I left there was a package on a table and Norman instructed me to take it. It was the Sheriff’s book. It was refused again. Norman, ever blunt spoken, suggested that if and when the grim reaper was to visit then that tattered book would end in the waste bin. I could not countenance that happening and agreed to take it.
Home, I went through it, hoping to find some illuminating notes. There are very faint pencil marks, but no suggestion of alternative timings or anything interesting like that. Ultraviolet light was used, but nothing of significance was obvious.
The word ‘canntaireachd’ appeared on some pages and I thought that perhaps Sheriff Grant had used some of those tunes in his study of the Campbell Canntaireachd of which he was an early enthusiast and transcriber. This is speculative.
In this edition General Thomason has included the names and photographs of the pipers who assisted him in his work and they are printed with this article.
In any case it is a remarkable piece of work. Had the General had access to computers, it would still have been a huge task to compile what he did. To do it all by hand is astonishing. Professional pipers of any era would not have had the ability or inclination to do anything like it.
- Read the original article on ‘Ceol Mor’ here.
