Piping Press

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…

Congratulations to Callum Beaumont after his remarkable success at the London Championship. To win two major piobaireachd prizes in one day takes a special player. To cap that with success in ceol beag and you are talking very special. Having heard Callum playing and winning the Clasp at Inverness it doesn’t surprise me that he is repeating that success a couple of months later. As they say, he has the…

Piobaireachd for the Dr Calum MacCrimmon Bratach Gorm (7 tunes) sponsored by the Piobaireachd Society1 Callum Beaumont, Lament for the Earl of Antrim2 Iain Speirs, Nameless, Cherede darievea3 Alasdair Henderson, Battle Auldearn 24 Glenn Brown, Scarce of Fishing5 Peter McCalister, Earl of Seaforth’s SaluteJudges: C Armstrong, W Wotherspoon, A Wright Open Piobaireachd for the William Gillies Cup (6 tunes)1 Callum Beaumont2 Alasdair Henderson3 Steven Leask4 Roderick MacLeod5 Sarah MuirJudges: A…

The Bratach Gorm piobaireachd competition was held last night (Nov 1) – the first time on a Friday. The venue was the Caledonian Club, Belgravia, London, and a good crowd supported the event run by the Scottish Piping Society of London and sponsored by the Piobaireachd Society. Unfortunately, to the general disgruntlement of the audience, the results were witheld until the prizegiving later today. Ten pipers entered; nine played; seven…

Today, with the Bratach Gorm taking place this evening in London, we thought it apposite to look back several decades, to 1972 to be precise, to see how the contest went on that occasion. This report is from the Oban Times of November that year and was by John MacFadyen (left). Yet again we see the historical value of written reports on piping. There is poignant mention of Jimmy Hardie…