Archives: Uist & Barra/ Bob Hardie/ Northern Meeting/ Donald MacPherson

This year’s Uist & Barra competition was cancelled due to the weather and we await details of a rearranged date. In the meantime a delve into the PP archives has revealed this cutting from the Daily Record of February 12, 1951, confirming that the contest was held even earlier all those years ago. These days it is usually on the first Saturday in March.  Under the headline ‘Portrait of prize piper’,…

PP Ed’s Blog: Online Band Registrations/ Piob Soc Conf/ Recital Cancelled/Neil in Falklands/ WW1 Tunes

The RSPBA have announced that registration for all major championships for 2018 is now available online. Chief Executive Ian Embelton says on the RSPBA website: ‘Online entries are now open for the 2018 championship season. ‘Entries for bands and drum majors will only be available online. We introduced this facility three years ago and in 2017 almost all entries were made online so we have now decided to remove the…

Quest to Return Medals to Piper’s Family/ Piobaireachd Composing Contest

The medals pictured above are the subject of a letter from reader Dorothy Tulloch. Dorothy writes: ‘I have pictures and medals of the piper Angus MacMillan. They were given to my dad, Drum Major Eric Allan, for an exhibition some years ago at the World [Pipe Band] Championships. ‘My dad was Eric Allan from Irvine and a member of Ayr Pipe Band as drum major (I think, maybe Irvine and…

Glasgow Highland Club Schools Invitational Competition (Results Added)

Wintry weather did not deter most bands and soloists entered for today’s annual Glasgow Highland Club schools contest held in the city, writes Our Juvenile Grade Correspondent. After the excitement of the large-scale Scottish Schools Championship last weekend, we had a smaller, more compact gathering, with nine bands listed to compete in a March Strathspey & Reel Competition at Hutcheson’s Grammar School, Glasgow. Eighty-four soloists were listed over five competitions. The band…

PP Ed’s Blog: Two Drone Pipe/ RSPBA College/ NEPADA/ SPA/ Liam O Flynn

I snapped this picture in a bar known as the ‘Tilted Kilt’ in Boca Raton, Florida, last month. What intrigued me was that the piper is playing a two-drone pipe. Given that the poster is calling on Irishmen to join up it must have been before the formation of the Irish Republic, and circa the outbreak of WW1. I seem to remember a reference to a regiment called the Irish…