“As a poor kid from Esquimalt, British Columbia I can tell you, I never thought I would travel to the cities, countries or continents I have been sent to, just to play bagpipes.” So says Canadian serviceman, Sergeant (Sgt.) Steven Drinkwalter, pictured, during a chat a few weeks ago with […]
Today, we feature another member of CLASP. David Mackenzie is next for shaving, as the late Pipe Major Robert Kilgour, would have put it. Where are you from and how did you get into piping?I am from Invergordon in the north of Scotland. My father was a piper in the […]
Some years later the Scottish Pipers and Dancers Association formed and I was put forward as one of the committee. Also included were Pipe Major John MacKenzie (Big John), James Mclvor, Pipe Major George Ross and others. I forget the names of the dancers who were also on the committee […]
John Davie Burgess died in July 2005, having achieved worldwide fame as a child prodigy on the pipes before maturing into one of the foremost exponents of Scotland’s national instrument. He was born in Aberdeen on March 11, 1934 but the family moved to Edinburgh when at a young age. […]
• Where are you from and how did you get into piping?I am from Selkirk in the Scottish Borders. I got into piping through my local pipe band, of which my uncle was the Pipe Major. I started to take lessons at Selkirk High School when I was 15. However, […]
At the pipers’ pub in the Townhead, all these pipers – Danny A. Campbell of Glendale [Skye], Willie Robb, Michael MacNeill – and others would take turn about to play on the practice chanter. By this time, MacDougall Gillies, who was the manager in Peter Henderson’s shop, had agreed to […]
After the war in South Africa, Murdoch MacDonald returned to the castle [Ardencaple Castle] and he was supplied with a new set of Henderson pipes. He was always fussy about his pipe chanter reed and never seemed to get one to please him. One night he told me he would […]
• Where are you from and how did you get into piping?I am from Ayr and started learning on the chanter at age seven. Piping was something I wanted to do from a young age after attending a pipe band competition held in the town in the early 1970s. • […]
The first lessons MacLeod and I had from Roderick Fraser were often interrupted when he would send us into Helensburgh for a jar of beer, which he would consume with a pot of potatoes and salt herring boiled together, and being fortified with this he would then proceed to play […]
Archie MacNeill (1879-1962), is probably best known as the composer of Donald MacLean’s Farewell to Oban, The Detroit Highlanders, David Ross of Rosehall and a few other great tunes that have stood the test of time. Archie, though, was an important figure in piping and, in fact, could be regarded […]
