To lose two Grade 1 pipe bands in one week is dispiriting news. Closkelt and Johnstone have gone to the wall both victims of a lack of numbers.
Will those in authority wake up? How long has this column, and significant cadre of our readers, been banging on about the need to restrict sizes in Grade One? Don’t the bigwigs at the RSPBA realise that if you allow unlimited numbers of pipers and drummers in any one band then that must, by any logic, reduce the pool available to others?
Naturally top players want to play with the top bands. ’In you come son, you might not get a game every week but we’re happy to have you.’
And so the numbers balloon, the recipient pipe major or leading drummer has a huge pool to pick from leaving bands at the lower end of the grade – good bands, hard working bands – struggling to fill their ranks.
There are plenty reading this who support the idea of restricting numbers but will never put their heads above the parapet. Piping and pipe bands is full of them. But we are facing an existential moment here. Something has to give. All bands need to get on to their representative at Washington Street and force through a change.
The actual numbers can be sorted out once the principle of band sizes is accepted. Speaking personally, what would be wrong with each band in Grade 1 having no more than 20 pipers and a ten sides on their books?
They would sound and play just as well as they do today and that would leave many fine players ready to boost the ranks of the Closkelts and the Johnstones. To P/Ms Chesney and MacKay I say this: you did nothing wrong. You are the latest victims of a flawed system
SPA Juvenile
President Logan Tannock, ‘Would it be possible for you to make an announcement that the SPA are planning to hold a Juvenile competition on the 8th of November at the NPC Otago Street. More details and entry forms will be available shortly.’
Great news that the SPA Juvenile is back on the books. This was always a mainstay of the junior calendar with trophies such as the MacDougall Gillies for piobaireachd going back many decades. Well done to the SPA committee.
Donald Cameron’s Powder Horn
How many of you play the eponymous jig? Had it not been for Donald MacLeod’s composing genius we might never even have given the artefact pictured a second thought:
I came across these pictures in the PP library this week. They were taken at the Northern Meeting in 2023 when they were on display. I can’t remember what the occasion was. The inscription (below) reads:
‘Awarded by the Edin. Highland Society to Donald Cameron, second best player of Piobaireachd on the Great Highland Bagpipe, 31st of July 1857.’ One wonders what the best player received.
I believe there may be more than one Donald Cameron Powder Horn, another being held by ‘wee’ Donald’s family, it having been presented to the maestro back in the 1970s. More information welcome.
Keith Sanger
I was sorry to hear this week of the passing of Keith Sanger, the piping historian and writer. Keith was an assiduous researcher and contributed his findings to publications for over 50 years. He presented several papers to the Piobaireachd Society at our Annual Conference.
Though always low-key in his delivery, the factual basis for his work was never doubted. His name will live on in the work that he produced, work that shed light on many hitherto unknown facts about our piping history, some of it concerning the legendary MacCrimmons.
