By Robert Wallace There were a few points I missed in my ‘nightmare scenario’ comments last week. The first is the plight of our bagpipe making/ Highland supplies industry. Orders are slowing. Without pipe band competition, and to a lesser extent solo contests, the future does not look good. The blow to these companies is being offset at the moment by the UK government’s furlough scheme which guarantees 80% of…

One of Scotland’s most popular competitons for young pipers will go ahead this October but only for those on practice chanter. Jon Gerard McClumpha of the promoters, the Caledonian Piping Club, has sent the information below. ‘As everyone knows – we are all in uncharted times & waters, and finding it difficult to steer an easy way out. Nothing is immune to the rippling effects emanating from this terrible virus,…

After Pipe Major Bob Shepherd MBE passed away last year I felt the need to commemorate him in some way and to pay my tribute to the man and his extraordinary accomplishments. First of all, I would like to go back in time somewhat. My first encounter with Bob Shepherd was in 1977 shortly before my 15th birthday. I went to the World Pipe Band Championships in Aberdeen with my father….my…

By Laëtitia Bernigaud From August 7 to 16, 2020, we should have celebrated the 50th year of the Festival Interceltique de Lorient, entitled ‘Year of Brittany’, and half a century of contemporary ‘intercelticism’. It is hard to believe 50 years have passed since the arrival in 1971, in Lorient, of the National Bagadoù Championship, the forerunner of the Festival. In five decades the ‘Fête des Cornemuses’ associated with the first Lorient…

UK Government scientists this week predicted a ‘reasonable worst case scenario’ of 119,000 deaths in January and February next year during a second wave of Covid-19. As we all recoil in horror, it is worth bearing in mind that there are opposing views in the scientific community about all this, the lack of unanimity among boffins a feature of the pandemic. But if this unlikely and disastrous circumstance were to…