Category: Bagpipes

History: Pipe Band Association Meeting that Marked the Beginning of the International Movement

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This article is based on the minutes of a meeting held on Sunday, June 30th, 1968, at the Leapark Hotel in Grangemouth, Stirlingshire. The industrial town had been the venue for the World Pipe Band Championships the day before. The picture above shows the Robert Armstrong Memorial Pipe Band, Northern Ireland, on the contest field that day. All the big names from the then Scottish Pipe Band Association were in…

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Editor’s Notebook: Spotlight on London/ Ross of the Guards/ Sunbelt Contest/ Lachie Robertson

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London’s piping heritage will come under focus this evening in the fourth of the Piobaireachd Society’s season of ‘Talk Piobaireachd’ sessions. In the hot seat will be the Society’s Treasurer Roddy Livingstone. The ‘first city of the Empire’ has always had a prominent role to play in pipng too. Consider the regimental bands of the Guards, the Queen’s Piper, Campbells at nearby Cambridge, Dr MacPhail, the Bratach Gorm, Les Cowell…

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WW2 Piping: Home Guard Pipe Bands, 1945 Competition and the Cameronians

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The Aberdeen (Works) Battalion Home Guard pipe band was formed in 1940 under P/M Charles S. Smith (1888-1950), who had been Pipe Major of the Aberdeen City Police Pipe Band for twelve years until his retirement in 1938. (Pictured above is another Aberdeenshire Home Guard band under P/M George Hepburn.) During the First World War the Aberdeen police band was temporarily disbanded so Charles Smith had played with the Harry…

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Hugh MacInnes, Campbell McGougan, P/M Angus and the ‘Big Pipe’ 

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It was a bit of a shock to hear from Duncan Watson a couple of weeks ago that Campbell McGougan in now in a nursing home. I doubt if he’ll remember me, but if you get a chance to speak to him Duncan, please tell him Clive Douglas, a friend of the late Hugh MacInnes, was asking for him. I know Duncan’s comments concerned Jack Churchill’s pipes at one time…

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Editor’s Notebook: Hopeful Signs for 2022 Season/ Dale Brown/ Ken Eller/ Northern Meeting 1971

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Whether coincidental or by design, the considerably more positive statement which has appeared on the RSPBA website subsequent to my comments of last week regarding the forthcoming pipe band season, are to be welcomed. The Association is working hard on the majors (judges, stewards, compilers), is filling in gaps on the minors, and has their promoters, our cash-strapped Scottish local authorities, in constant and close contact. The feeling in Washington…

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