Forty years ago I was at Corby, in Northants, for the World Pipe Band Championships (yes, the fated we wuz robbed event). Last weekend saw me back there almost to the day to judge the solo piping. Thanks to the influx of steelworkers in the 50s and 60s, Corby has a strong Scottish heritage, and a few thousand turned out for the games and pipe band competition. Before proceedings got…
IN all my years of writing about piping and pipe bands there has never been a story as touching as that of Captain John Young, Assam Regiment and Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. He was the officer who, hopelessly outnumbered and fearing encirclement and massacre by the Japanese, sent his men to safety while he remained alone at his jungle outpost. Thus he fulfilled his orders to fight to the last man…
Today we end our look at the life and times of piping genius Angus MacKay, how he was consumed by mental illness and eventually escaped from an institution and drowned in a river in south-west Scotland. There are tributes and an assessment of the life of the man who more than any other laid the foundation of our modern piping tradition. Final day for entries to the National Mod piping…
New PP Video Archive page launched today with a slideshow from the Argyllshire Gathering. It has pictures from before WW2 right up to the present day. The picture above is included. It is from the games at Oban in 1950, and the pipers left to right are: John Finlay, Charlie Scott, Willie Connell, Donald MacLean (Lewis), a shy looking John Burgess, George Stoddart, J O’Grady and R Henderson. John D. had…
A good crowd of 60 or so gathered at St Mary’s Church in Haddington last Sunday to hear 17-year-old Brìghde Chaimbeul from Skye give a very well-received piping recital. Brìghde played a wide-ranging set of tunes on both the Highland pipes and smallpipes. She began with a selection of 6/8 marches, including MacLeod of Mull and MacNeill of Ugadale. She then played some hornpipes and jigs and continued with the MSR, Braes of…
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