Tommy Graham passed away peacefully on the Monday before Christmas surrounded by his family. He was 93. Though small in stature, Tommy was a huge character and champion of piping and pipe bands. He was the founder and pipe major of the Graham Highland Pipe Band, a band consisting mostly of members of his family. Tommy is pictured above as band P/M. He was a war hero and in later…

We’ll be back after the break with the very best in piping and pipe band journalism. We value your support and that of our advertisers and contributors. Look out for our review of 2019 from some of our ace scribes as we look at the highs and lows of the past 12 months.

Jimmy McIntosh on the archive report on Willie MacDonald, Benbecula’s Clasp in 1967: ‘My late friend Peter Forbes and myself stayed with Willie at that time. (Peter served in the HLI with Willie.) That morning when we were getting ready to go to Rose Street [the venue for the competition], Willie didn’t have his kilt jacket. His wife Margaret had forgotten to get it from the dry cleaners so Willie…

I was interested to read the extracts from the May 1936 issue of the Piping & Dancing’ magazine which Piping Press featured recently and in particular the item relating to the ‘Ulster Notes’. The North of Ireland Bands Association formed in 1907 exists to the present day. In its heyday in the 1940s / 50s it had a membership of 250 bands. Pipe bands joined it in 1911 and remained in membership…

The third and final part of Harry Stevenson’s very well received series…. Japan had entered the war in December 1941 with an unprovoked attack on the United States Navy at Pearl Harbour and also by occupying British, Dutch and United States possessions in the Pacific and Far East.  Burma fell to the Japanese, and with their next objective the conquest of India, the 14th Army composed of British and Indian…