Piping Press

I am writing this from the north German plain, from the well appointed youth hostel at Müden/Örtze the home of the Northern Winter School of Piping, Drumming and Drum-majoring. Sixty plus students have gathered and at the moment are getting to know one another round the log fire in the reception hall. They’re mainly from Germany of course, but there are pipers from Australia, Singapore and Ukraine too.  Largely self-taught,…

It is a tradition at the Northern Meeting that the previous year’s Gold Medallist pipes at the civic reception that inaugurates that particular year’s competition. This year the honour fell to Dr Peter McCalister recently mentioned on these pages as a prizewinner in the Bratach Gorm in London. Before his performance in the Inverness Town House back in August, Peter circulated notes on the tunes he was going to play…

Tam McGirr, formerly of Fife and now in Australia, has sent this regarding the historic picture of Bob Shepherd in his early days teaching piping at Ballingry School. Tam writes:‘To the best of my recollection the pupils are, front desk with glasses: Tom McGirr (Dysart Worlds 1978) age 15yrs then Shotts & Police Fife) and James Galloway. Left desk: Robert Jeffrey and Billy Campbell. RT Shepherd. Seated behind: Jock Rougvie,…

We travelled to honour the memory of one of the great pipe band figures of the modern era, P/M RT Shepherd MBE, ‘Bob’ to everyone. Milling around the entrance we hundreds heard the distant sound of well tuned pipes and there, as the cortege drove towards the entrance, appeared a mini band of some of the grandest names. Resplendent in Highland dress, pipes tuned to perfection, P/Ms Richard Parkes, Douglas…

By John Shone The 80th Annual London Competition was held this year, for the first time, at the Caledonian Club, Halkin St., Mayfair, SW1. This is a very prestigious address and I think turned out to be most satisfactory. The Vice President of the Society, Billy Wardrope, had the unenviable job of finding a replacement venue for Kensington Town Hall which had become unavailable. The Caledonian Club (pictured above) proved…