Piping Press

Last week’s story on the sorry demise of the Piping Times prompted quite a response from readers, writes the Editor. One suggested we make an offer for it (20 years ago maybe), and regular correspondent Ken Rogers from Calgary penned: ‘I read the submission regarding the final edition of the Piping Times fading into history. ‘For me, I retained 34 copies of the magazine of which you were the editor, …

In 1951 the SPBA NI Branch came into existence and while the majority of competing bands in Northern Ireland had joined it, St Patrick’s along with most of the bands from the Cookstown, Dungannon and Omagh areas, remained with the Northern Ireland Band Association. In 1951 the band won Grade 4 at the Cookstown Young Farmers Club contest at Loughery Grounds, Cookstown. The band must have joined the SPBA NI…

The committee of the Nicol-Brown amateur competition in the US deserve credit for instituting and maintaining a dress and deportment prize in their annual event. Looking at the photographs of the youngsters competing (above) is so much more pleasurable than had they been parading in shorts and t-shirts. The D/D winner, Kevin Darmadi, is top centre. The pipers are learning early on that the instrument and its music is deserving…

I am attempting to find details of the uniforms that were created for the pipe band of the Royal Company of Archers (RCA). I am in the process of creating models of the RCA pipe band based on a very poor photo of the band I have found. The Royal Company of Archers is a ceremonial unit that serves as the Sovereign’s Bodyguard in Scotland, a role it has performed…

After the Second World War the band recruited Pipe Major Harry Sawyers as their tutor and this led to great success through the decade and into the 1950s. In addition to the successes he achieved with the band, of equal importance was his ability as a teacher to improve the tuning and playing techniques of the band’s many young members. This tutelage would prove paramount during the decades that followed….