Piping Press

It is looking less and less likely that there will be any major pipe band championships this year. Everyone should brace themselves for cancellation of the Scottish and World Championships. Major August events such as the Edinburgh Festival and Military Tattoo have tumbled already. This pandemic is now so serious that I wonder if people’s hearts would be in it anyway. Would bands have time to prepare? Short notice could…

The Radio Scotland piping programme ‘Pipeline’ has had the same producer for the past 30 years: Iain MacInnes. Yesterday saw the end of an era when Iain, now 60, retired. We asked him to reflect on his time in the studio and below he talks of a rewarding career and some of the pipers he met along the way. Iain is no mean piper himself. His father was Director of…

The Centre have issued this statement today… ‘The Board of the National Piping Centre is delighted to announce that Finlay MacDonald (above) has been appointed to the position of Director of Piping of the National Piping Centre. ‘He will assume this position on 1/6/20. He has worked at the NPC since 2002 and for the last 12 years has been an outstanding and creative Head of Piping Studies. We look…

The following article was by Donald McIntosh and early advocate for the then SPBA. It appeared in the November 1935 issue of ‘Piping and Dancing’ Magazine…controversy over grading and proposed extension of the SPBA into Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The above picture is of Stonehouse Pipe Band from Lanarkshire, winners of the first Grade 1 contest Cowal for civilian bands in 1909. We are grateful to Alan…

Very pleasing response to the PP Lockdown Challenge with videos, drawings, a painting, tunes and essays coming our way rapido. Keep it going folks. Use that time constructively and creatively and maybe put a smile on the faces of our hard pressed piping fraternity. First the frustrating stuff however. Tomintoul Games, due for mid July, have been cancelled for 2020. Wallace Bagpipes, RG Hardie and McCallums are all curbing their…