Pipe Major William Ross’s third book of ceòl beag appeared in 1938 and was reviewed anonymously in the Oban Times newspaper. The review was positive, congratulating the author and publisher on ‘a notable addition to the literature of the Highland bagpipe’. However one paragraph set the fans and family of piper and composer GS McLennan all aquiver. It read: ‘…..but Pipe Major Ross has avoided the grosser forms of exagerration…

The National Piping Centre in Glasgow has returned a significant increase in profits its latest accounts show. In the financial year ended April 30, 2019, the Centre had an income of over £3.5m against expenditure of just over £3m giving them a profit of slightly less than £500,000 and a doubling of its profit on 2018. The exact figures: Income £3,554,151; Expenditure £3,067,655; Profit: £486,496. The details are contained in…

We conclude the very interesting article ‘Pipers of Scotland’ from the pen of the London Times piping correspondent Seton Gordon. It dates from the 1960s. In this excerpt he discusses the hereditary pipers to the MacDougalls and MacKenzies, gives composers for two famous piobaireachd and poses the age old question: do pipers today play as the masters of the past did? The MacDougalls were originally hereditary pipers to the MacDougall…

We continue with the article by noted writer Seton Gordon first published in the London Times in the 1960s…. Another family of pipers celebrated at one time in Perthshire were the MacIntyres, for a period pipers to the chiefs of the Clan Menzies. They were not, like the MacGregors, natives of the county but came traditionally from the Isles. The first of whom we have read is Donald Mor. He…

For many decades the elegant prose of writer Seton Gordon graced the pages of the London Times discoursing as he would on piping, folklore and the natural world of the Highlands of Scotland. Here we reproduce the first part of an article he wrote in the 1960s. It shows that the MacCrimmons were not the only great piping family of legend…. THE world has heard of the MacCrimmons of Skye…