Further to yesterday’s report about the forthcoming book of Evan MacRae’s memoirs, we hear of a fellow piper in the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders is currently completing his memoirs.
Jimmy McIntosh MBE (94) served in the regiment from October 1939 (aged 14) until 1949. He served with the 5th Battalion, 51st Highland Division in Europe then in January 1947 sailed for Japan, finishing up in Malaya.
We caught up with Jimmy to ask him about the pipers he remembered in the regiment. “The only pipers of note in Germany,” he said, “were Pipe Major Angus McDonald, who later was Pipe Major the Glasgow Police, and Evan McRae who joined me when Angus demobbed. In Malaya there were no noted players but Major David Murray was my Band President. I was Pipe Major when the other one demobbed. Col. A. G. L. McLean of Pennycross was my Commanding Officer.
“When I joined in 1939 the noted players were Willie McRostie, Lance Corporal John McLellan, Robert (Mickey) McKay, Evan McRae, Malcolm McPherson and Pipe Major William Young. Later, there were Pipe Major Donald McLeod. Alec McDonald and Tommy Grant and Archie McNab (who both went on to the Glasgow Police).
“I had most of my Army tuition from Pipe Major Willie Ross, Pipe Major William Young and Donald McLeod.”
Jimmy was last in Scotland last summer for a month. His book is certain to be fascinating read. In addition to his Army days it will no doubt will touch on his pipe band playing days, his time time working for National Cash in Dundee, his reed-making business and the period where he left Scotland to take up the post of piping instructor at Carnegie Mellon University.
Jimmy won the Gold Medal at Inverness in 1971, at the Argyllshire Gathering in 1978 and was the first winner of the the Glenfiddich – or Grants Championship as it was called originally. Jimmy was awarded the MBE in 1994 and the Balvenie Medal in 2002.
Reader, Stewart Gardiner has been on to provide information regarding one of the photographs of Fred Oudney that appeared on Bagpipe.News on Sunday. The particular photo is the one showing Pipe Major Iain MacLeod of the Edinburgh Police tuning a piper’s drones. Stewart writes: “I can’t say where the photo was taken but it is most likely in the late 1960s going by the plaid brooches. The player having his drones tuned is PC Davie Laird.”
Thanks Stewart. We have sent this information on.
