2021 Nicol-Brown Amateur (USA) Results

This was an online competition held on October 9. Overall Champion1 Stuart Marshall, receives MacCallum Pipe Chanter and $1000 travel expenses2 Jessica Bain3 Callum Bevan4 Henry Paluch5 Trevor DeMass Piob1 Callum Bevan, Corrienessan’s Salute (receives a bound volume of the Piobaireachd Society Collection)2 Trevor DeMass, Lament for the Viscount of Dundee3 Stuart Marshall, MacLeod’s Salute4 Jessica Bain, Piper’s Warning5 Scott Long, Caber Feidh gu Brath MSR1 Henry Paluch, receives engraved…

Scotland County Highland Games A Huge Success As Live Competition Returns In the American South

Held in a region which was densely populated by Highland Scots beginning in the 18th century, the Scotland County Highland Games, in Laurinburg, North Carolina, USA, returned in great fashion after a two year hiatus.  A record crowd of almost 7,000 attendees witnessed a full day of events. It is a small Highland Games but this year quite significant as, if all our research proves to be accurate, which I…

Argyllshire Gathering Score Major Success with New Intermediate Piping Championship

The Lochnell Estate lies low on a wooded spit of land jutting out into the Firth of Lorne. Sheltered on its eastern lee sits a castle, home of the Cochrane clan for 100 years and the Campbells for centuries before. For most of last Saturday its ancient walls resounded to the call of the bagpipe. There may have been some unkind things said about the sea-going Cochranes back in Admiral…

Captain John MacLellan Memorial Results

The 8th annual Captain John A MacLellan MBE memorial Piping Championships were held at the Army School of Bagpipe Music and Highland Drumming at Inchdrewer House in Edinburgh today. The event, one of the premier solo piping contests in the world, received a record entry once again with B & C grade contests full and the A & P grade contests also attracting a very strong entry. By Senior Pipe…

History: P/Sgt John Maclean, Scots Guards, the 1930 Northern Meeting and a Tribute to Mary Queen of Scots

I was interested in the Piping Press article (6th Sept. Donald Morrison Archive) regarding the Northern Meeting piping competitions 1930, which mentioned my father John Maclean (North Uist). Only minor error in the newspaper’s report was that my father was in fact Pipe-SERGEANT, not Pipe-Major. He was later Pipe-Major 2nd Btn. HLI. In the Gold Medal he, like Nicol, played Cille Chriosd (Glengarry’s March). His fellow Guardsman, Malcolm ‘Baggy’ MacMillan was…