Apropos the Somme bagpipe and the doubts and comment thereon, consider this possible sequence of events. The pipes are delivered by the War Office to the family in Northumberland some time in 1917. They have been scraped up from the battlefield mud and blood. It would be fair to assume they were in a state of disrepair after what they had been through, mounts shot up, joints cracked. The grieving…

The Scottish Highland Games Association has estimated that their members generate around £25m each summer for the national economy, cash now lost to the pandemic, the latest cancellation, Skye Gathering, following a sorry pattern we’ve all become immune to. The reckoning from this protracted lockdown is coming our way and will be felt everywhere, not least in the games’ host communitites. Many rely on profit from one year to launch…

It was with considerable sadness that I learned of the passing of Iain MacDonald, Pipe Major of the Neilston Pipe Band, and a man who did so much to build bridges between the piping world and the folk. Iain, who was 70, was a great enthusiast and collector of bagpipes of other countries and amassed an estimable personal collection. He had a great life travelling to folk festivals the world…

In 2002 FMM won the drumming in the Medley at the Worlds. It set me on my road with what I was going to do with the corps; more hard work, a few extra players, looking at our instruments, how our instruments worked, checking the final detail of our presentation of our drumming by introducing dynamics. The great Shotts & Dykehead were, in my book, losing some of their lights…