Last weekend was spent near St Conan’s Kirk, on Loch Awe-side in Argyll. That’s the handsome church you see on your left about twenty miles east of Oban as you head for the Argyllshire Gathering. It was the venue for a concert to celebrate the life and work of the famous Gaelic poet, Duncan Ban Macintyre. There was piping and poetry and stories. One speaker, Professor Alan Riach of Glasgow…
The piper with his bagpipes has been understood for years to be a symbol of Scottish patriotism, fierce, a brave fighter, and a cultural icon. Seeing the piper on the front lines of the First World War had the effect of energising the soldiers and lifting moral. When pipers jumped over the top of the trenches and played the pipes with no thought of their own mortality, they harkened back…
Two memorial services commemorate and celebrate the contribution to piping of Jimmy McIntosh MBE, who left us earlier this year. The first was held on November 13th in Anderson, South Carolina, where we lived latterly. Piping friends from five nearby states and local friends and acquaintances gathered for a service and a ceilidh. Music continued late into the evening at the McIntosh residence. By Joyce McIntosh The second memorial service…
We had several hours to kill before our flight home from the Northern Winter School and accepted an invitation of a short tour of the nearest great city, Hamburg, from our generous guides Frank and Kirsten. Hamburg vies with Rotterdam as the most important port on mainland Europe. A previous tax-free enclave made it a world centre for coffee roasting. Much of the old quarter is built on oak piles…
John Nevans is the current piping instructor at Lathallan School’s pipe band, having held the post for fifteen years. In this article he reveals the war herosim of the band’s founder, Mr Harry Stott…. Lathallan School sits at the base of a sloping coastline surrounded by natural woodlands, yards away from the rocky shoreline of the North Sea. Close to the fishing village of Johnshaven, the school occupies the building known as…
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