I have diminishing confidence that there willl be a ‘normal’ pipe band season in 2022. If I accept that the reasons for this year’s wipe out were social distancing, masks, money, foreign travel then, I become even more sceptical. The UK government has indicated that, despite the easing of lockdown, ‘baseline’ measures such as masks and distancing will stay for another year. Foreign travellers coming here will be subjected to…

This is a fascinating subject to me as the Highland drovers would have brought music into England enriching the folk tradition. Much seems to be written about the music of the clan chiefs but not so much about the tradition amongst the working people and if readers have any information regarding the drovers who brought the Scots cattle down from the Highlands and Islands in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries I’d be delighted…

The Piobaireachd Society has announced that this year’s amateur piobaireachd competition for the prestigious Archie Kenneth Quaich will be ‘live’ but online. Society members will be able to tune in to the 28 performances from 9am (BST or GMT+1) on May 22. The results will be announced at another online event on June 2nd. MC for the day is AKQ organiser Peter McCalister. Judges are Society members Iain Speirs and…

The following is from an Oban Times of early 1951…. Pipers and dancers from a’ the airts, including a large contingent from Scotland, arrived at the headquarters of the London Scottish regiment in Buckingham Gate for the annual competitions of the Scottish Piping Society of London All day long the notes of the piobaireachd, the classic pipe music of the Gael, the merrier strains of marches, strathspeys and reels, and…

It was touching to read and study the photographs in Avi Bloomenstiel’s piece last week, featuring, as it did, two of the greats of piping we have lost in the past few months, Jimmy McIntosh and Iain Morrison. I spoke to Jimmy shortly before he died and later received an email from him regarding Iain’s passing: ‘My health and head are catching up with me. I saw you had a…