Category: Letters

Editor’s Notebook: P/M Barnes BEM/ Lady Lever Park/ John MacFadyen/ SPA Amateurs 1970

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Welcome back everyone and I hope you all had a good New Year break. First off I want to congratulate my old mucker Robert Barnes on being awarded the BEM in HM The King’s New Year Honours. No one deserves recognition more than Barney. He’s been teaching kids in Fife and generally contributing to the Kingdom’s piping for 50 plus years. He is what we call in Scotland a ‘lad…

More Editor’s Notebook: P/M Barnes BEM/ Lady Lever Park/ John MacFadyen/ SPA Amateurs 1970

Editor’s Notebook: RSPBA Branch Reorganisation/ Prize Pipes/ Cailean’s Card/ NZ School/ Edinburgh Police Solos 1971

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Whilst we are focussed on the matter of the ‘missing majors’ I think it would also be sensible if the RSPBA formally rationalised their branches. It is a good while now since the demise of the Fife and Central Scotland branches with their bands being absorbed into either Lothian & Borders or Dundee, Perth & Angus. But the names no longer make sense. All the former Central Scotland Branch bands…

More Editor’s Notebook: RSPBA Branch Reorganisation/ Prize Pipes/ Cailean’s Card/ NZ School/ Edinburgh Police Solos 1971

Editor’s Notebook: Robert’s Top Job/ Mull of Kintyre/ Tools for Sale/ Pipers’ Persuasion/ Northern Meeting 1996

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I hear that Robert Mathieson (pictured) has taken on the role of Convenor of the RSPBA’s Adjudicator’s Panel Management Board. Best man for the job, and the Board of Directors should not be slow in approaching him for ideas about how to solve the ‘missing majors’ crisis. Indeed there are several individuals on the APMB whose experience and knowledge should be drafted in to help. It’s got to be all…

More Editor’s Notebook: Robert’s Top Job/ Mull of Kintyre/ Tools for Sale/ Pipers’ Persuasion/ Northern Meeting 1996

‘Talk Piobaireachd’ Tonight / London Piper and His First Prize in 1937

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The next session in the Piobaireachd Society’s popular ‘Talk Piobaireachd’ series of online tutorials is tonight at 8pm GMT. It features champion piper Jack Lee from British Columbia, Canada. Jack will discuss and play two tunes, Black Donald’s March and the Cave of Gold. The first is the tune with which he won his first Gold Medal, at Inverness, in 1981. The second is a more obscure, seldom heard tune,…

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History of Clan MacRae Published in Book Form

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Piping historian Iain Duncan has compiled a neat booklet on the history of the Clan MacRae Society Pipe Band. It is based on the series of five articles published in Piping Press and contains lots of photos and facts all readily accessible, writes the Editor. Not in the book is the photograph above. It was published in ‘Pipe Band’ magazine in the early 1980s and accompanied a letter. The writer,…

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