Category: Letters

Editor’s Notebook: AG Lochnell Championship/ Capt. John Contest/ Clan Maciver Tune/ Lorient Festival

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The Argyllshire Gathering’s Intermediate Championship 2022 will be held at Lochnell Castle near Oban on October 22. Eight leading young professional pipers will be invited to compete for what has already become a sought after title. Last year’s winner, Andrew Ferguson, Dollar Academy, is pictured second left above. Styled after the Glenfiddich Championship for senior pipers, the Lochnell requires a submission of four Piobaireachd and four MSRs the winner in…

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Editor’s Notebook: Lochaber/ Bessie MacKinnon/ Henderson Pipes/ SPA Professional

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Occasionally we must extract a negative from what was clearly a happy, successful event. I refer to the Lochaber Junior Piping competition held last Saturday in Fort William. Yet again we saw very few pipers or drummers from the local schools coming forward to take part. Why is this? There is a full time piping tutor in Lochaber (for the past 20 years anyway) and I believe he/she has a…

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Editor’s Notebook: Henderson’s Shop/ Highland Games/ Sir John MacDonald/ Stuart Easton/ Campbeltown Book

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On a pleasant perambulation through Glasgow city centre the other day I passed the Atholl Arms pub in Renfrew Street. They’ve this old picture in the window. If you look closely you can see bagpipemaker Peter Henderson‘s shop next door at number 24. This was where John MacDougall Gillies held court of a Saturday, passing on his great knowledge to those crowding in. It was here too that RG Hardie…

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Jim Butler, Pipers’ Whisky Pipe Band/ British Columbia Pipers Association Gathering 2022

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I was so sorry to read about the death of Jim Butler, writes Iain Duncan.  Such a nice guy, we were Pipe Sergeants of our respective bands, Jim, Pipers’ Whisky (they had various incarnations), and me with Glasgow Skye.   Latterly we would bump into each other at Piping Live and 2019 was the last time we met (in the Ardnamurchan restaurant across from the Piping Centre).  For the PP…

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Editor’s Notebook: The Never Decreasing Circle/ Develop the Worlds Medley/ Bob McFie/ Miscellany

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For all the detailed, cogent explanation given by Alistair Aitken for judging inconsistency in pipe band competition the main culprit, in my view, is the circle formation used virtually unchanged by the RSPBA for not far off 100 years. I’ve droned on about this long and weary, but with judges wandering about the playing area seemingly at random, different walking patterns for every band, is it any wonder there’s a…

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