Author: Robert Wallace

Editor’s Notebook: Dumbarton Draw/ General Thomason’s Sword/ Lorient Festival/ Scots Guards KO

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The RSPBA have published the draws for the next pipe band championships, the Scottish at Dumbarton. In Grade 1 there are ten bands playing in the following order: Fife Police, Shotts, Scottish Power, Johnstone, FMM, SLOT, Boghall, Closkelt, Police Scotland and Inveraray. Judges are John Wilson, Peter Hunt, Stuart Coils and Tom Brown. The contest is not until July 27 so bands have five weeks to prepare. After that the…

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Blairgowrie Games Entries Open

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Piping Convenor Stuart Samson has announced entries are now open for Blairgowrie Highland Games to be held on Sunday, 8th September 2024. The games are supported by the Competing Pipers Association. Email entries to Stuart at piping@blairgowriehighlandgames.co.uk indicating which events you wish to enter. Competitors will be notified in advance of their draw for each event entered. The entry fee is the admission fee taken at the gate to gain access to…

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Aberdeen Games Cancelled

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Aberdeen Games due to take place today, June 16, at the city’s Hazelhead Park have been cancelled. Heavier than expected overnight rain has left the park waterlogged. Refunds for spectators and entrants will be refunded. The piping events had had a higher than expected entry.

Editor’s Notebook: Forres Thoughts/ Ian C Cameron/ Jim Dow/ Balmoral Concerts/ Gaelic Cash

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Not being able to travel to Forres for the British I had a listen to a few of the Grade 1 bands online. Not ideal, but better than nothing. Of those I heard I thought third placed Shotts had the most complete MSR. The winners Boghall had an outstanding march…but then the strathspey. Inveraray, second, likewise. Band drummers these days don’t play strathspeys in the traditional sense, four beats to…

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Piobaireachd Society Summer School on Skye

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I had always wondered why the last of the MacCrimmons, Donald Ruadh, found himself on the mainland at Glenelg. Thanks to research by Dr Decker Forrest we now know that those fertile lands, directly opposite Skye on the old drove road to Mam Ratagan and the south, were owned by the MacLeods of Dunvegan. Back then the MacLeods revered their pipers, granting them land rent free on Duirinish, and would…

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