If you are not able to be at Pilrig St. Paul’s Church in Edinburgh, tomorrow, Friday, May 2, for Richard McLauchlan’s release of his book The Bagpipes: a Cultural History, you have the chance to catch him at the Boswell Book Festival on Saturday, May 10.
The Boswell Book Festival is the world’s only festival of biography and memoir, which takes place in the gorgeous grounds of Dumfries house in Ayrshire. This year the festival occurs on the weekend of May 9-11, with talks and performances that are live-streamed and recorded, so people can watch at a time that suits them. As usual, our fantastic programme includes some of the leading biographers and memoirists writing today.
Richard McLauchlan: The Bagpipes
History’s first named bagpiper performed ‘with a bag tucked under his armpit’. He was the Roman Emperor Nero. Since then, this strange animal-like conflation of bag and sticks has become the world’s most beloved and contested instrument. Another piping emperor, Tsar Peter the Great, decided that his departed pet bear would live on—as a bagpipe. Biographer and former Pipe Major Richard McLauchlan’s vivid history tells the long story of an instrument boasting over 130 varieties, yet commonly associated with just one, from one country: Scotland’s Great Highland Bagpipe. Telling anecdotes abound such as the piper who played troops into battle at Waterloo and his great-grandson doing the same 100 years later at the Battle of the Somme; he brings the story up to date with the rise of women pipers and the way in which a ‘national instrument’ can shift in meaning amidst the currents of identity.
Saturday 10 May, 10.30. Live stream available.
www.boswellbookfestival.co.uk/2025/events/434