Piping Press

Before another decade slips by we thought we’d have a look back at the 2009 Worlds when, on August 15th, Canada’s Simon Fraser University Pipe Band triumphed at Glasgow Green winning both the band contest and the drumming. Here’s a photo gallery of pictures from the great day for the lads and lassies from British Columbia, a day that saw them placed first in both Medley and MSR under P/M…

The Queen’s New Year’s Honour List has announced that Tom Brown, former leading drummer of Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia and tutor and mentor to hundreds of pipe band drummers, has been created a Member of the British Empire (MBE). The citation reads: ‘Thomas Johnston BROWN, Pipe Band Drummer and Instructor, Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia Pipe Band. For services to Scottish Traditional Music.’ Boghall and Bathgate owe much of their current…

Tommy Graham passed away peacefully on the Monday before Christmas surrounded by his family. He was 93. Though small in stature, Tommy was a huge character and champion of piping and pipe bands. He was the founder and pipe major of the Graham Highland Pipe Band, a band consisting mostly of members of his family. Tommy is pictured above as band P/M. He was a war hero and in later…

We’ll be back after the break with the very best in piping and pipe band journalism. We value your support and that of our advertisers and contributors. Look out for our review of 2019 from some of our ace scribes as we look at the highs and lows of the past 12 months.

Jimmy McIntosh on the archive report on Willie MacDonald, Benbecula’s Clasp in 1967: ‘My late friend Peter Forbes and myself stayed with Willie at that time. (Peter served in the HLI with Willie.) That morning when we were getting ready to go to Rose Street [the venue for the competition], Willie didn’t have his kilt jacket. His wife Margaret had forgotten to get it from the dry cleaners so Willie…