County Durham-based piper Neil Thain has kindly forwarded this article on a piping school held in the then Rhodesia in 1974 and conducted by William MacDonald, Inverness. Mr Thain has a collection of recordings of piobaireachd he made of Willie during the school and it is hope these can be made available via the Piobaireachd Society’s archive in due course. Fifty years ago Rhodesia was a small country in Southern…

I am trying hard to stay optimistic following RSPBA Chairman John Hughes’s statement on Piping Press last week. The realists among you will have crunched some dates. I think we can discount the first two majors at Paisley and Lurgan. That means the season will start, barring setbacks, at the Europeans at Inverness on June 26. That means that the all clear for full ‘aerosol practices’ would need to be…

The 2021 Florida Pipe & Drum Academy, scheduled for February 21 -26 in Jacksonville, has been postponed due to the ongoing pandemic. Academy organiser Chris McKeown said: ‘We really had no option given the current travel difficulties between the US and the UK. We are disappointed but there is nothing we can do. ‘We are exploring alternative dates for July and once we have settled on a way forward we…

The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association have affirmed that they are determined to have a 2021 pipe band season if it is at all possible. Their top level planning groups met continuously during the latter part of 2020 and further meetings are scheduled for this month. The hope is that the UK’s rapid vaccine roll out will save the season, or at least part of it. The Association say the…

The archive has been made more accessible and is now self contained on the PP website. Access is free to all readers. We believe the quality of the recordings has been maintained during transfer. There are recordings from some of the great pipers of the past and also some recent tunes from up and coming young players such as Cameron MacDougall. Light music is very well represented with contributions from…