RSPBA Directors Meeting: Summary of Main Points of Discussion

The RSPBA have issued the minutes of their Board of Directors meeting earlier this month. Here are the main take aways at a glance: The Marketing and Media group is to look at attracting advertising to the Association website. At present the site, very popular at competition times, is ad-free. The BoD will discuss ways of celebrating the Association’s Centenary in 2023 and also making a contribution to Glasgow’s 850th…

‘Talk Piobaireachd’ Tonight / London Piper and His First Prize in 1937

The next session in the Piobaireachd Society’s popular ‘Talk Piobaireachd’ series of online tutorials is tonight at 8pm GMT. It features champion piper Jack Lee from British Columbia, Canada. Jack will discuss and play two tunes, Black Donald’s March and the Cave of Gold. The first is the tune with which he won his first Gold Medal, at Inverness, in 1981. The second is a more obscure, seldom heard tune,…

Editor’s Notebook: Oban and Inverness/ Irish in Spain/ MacDonald Search / Lorient Poster/ Eagle Pipers 1969

I hope that the new, early registration rule for senior pipers works in cutting down the numbers at Oban and Inverness. (Entries in the Former Winners’ MSR, Clasp and Senior Piobaireachd need to be in by January 31 next year.) However I suspect most of those pipers who qualify will enter anyway and ‘see how they feel about competing’ nearer the time. Most will, of course, play; but a few…

Rare Picture, Campbells of Kilberry and the Founding of the Piobaireachd Society

Together the two individuals in the above image helped change the course of piping history. Can you guess who they are? The handsome woman on the left is Lady Elspeth Campbell, and on the right John Campbell, Kilberry. I am indebted to his great-grandson, also John, and now the Piping Steward at the Argyllshire Gathering, for forwarding the photograph from his family collection. By Robert Wallace ‘It shows Lady Elspeth…

Editor’s Notebook: ‘Missing’ Majors/ Irish in Spain/ Split Stock / Wiltshire Piper/ Edinburgh Police Solos

Thanks to the many readers who have contributed to the debate on the RSPBA’s ‘missing Majors’. I agree with much of what has been said, in particular that the Association need to be pro-active in encouraging Cowal and the All Ireland promoters to help out. They may already have been in touch, I don’t know. With only the Worlds and the Scottish secure for next summer, we should not be…