Category: History

Famous Pipers: P/M Alasdair Gillies In His Own Words – Part 3

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We continue our ‘Famous Pipers’ column with the third part of our look back at the life and career of the late P/M Alasdair Gillies, renowned solo piper and last Pipe Major of the Queen’s Own Highlanders. What you will read is from an interview with the man himself for Piper Press magazine, the forerunner to Piping Press, in 1999. Alasdair has already talked of his annual obsession with the Northern Meeting….

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78th Fraser Highlanders Concert Remembered

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Our main feature today is an article by Northern Ireland piper Kenny Stewart on the historic concert given by Bill Livingstone’s 78th Fraser Highlanders Pipe Band in Ballymena, Ken’s home town, in 1987. Ken tells us of the origins of the show, how it was organised and how the band impressed so many people with their playing only a few days before they lifted the World Champion crown, the first…

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Famous Pipers: Pipe Major Alasdair Gillies, Part 2

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Alasdair talks of his early years and how he developed his….. Love Affair With the Northern Meeting at Inverness By P/M Alasdair Gillies My association with the Northern Meeting, is short in comparison with Corriechoillie (43 visits according to the tune title), but quite eventful. Living in Ullapool after the family had moved from Glasgow in 1975, I had been winning some prizes at the Highland games round the north. My father…

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P/M Alasdair Gillies and Gordon Duncan Remembered

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Our ‘Famous Pipers’ column today has the first part of our look back at the life and times of the late, great P/M Alasdair Gillies, renowned solo piper and last Pipe Major of the Queen’s Own Highlanders. Alasdair passed away aged only 47 in 2011. The first excerpt in the series is the obituary written for him by PP Editor Robert Wallace which appeared in the national press shortly after…

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PP Ed’s Blog: Tumbledown Mountain/ BB Results/ Piping Tuition

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My report the other day on P/M Peter MacInnes and his tune for Captain John Young brought to mind Peter’s own heroism and that of his piper colleagues in the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards during the 1982 Falklands War. Many youngsters now learn the tune Crags of Tumbledown Mountain by P/M James Riddell, Scots Guards, but how many know the story behind the tune? The picture above was taken on…

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