By Lt. Col. D. J. S. Murray In the year 2000 there was published Dr William Donaldson’s seminal The Highland Pipe and Scottish Society, a well written, well researched and well sourced book which one thought would have been well received by the serious piping fraternity. The contrary was the […]
James Blair Robertson was born in Dundee, Scotland in 1905. He was for many years a living legend among competing pipers and when he died, in London on October 2, 1988, one of the last remaining links with the leading pipers of the 1920s and 1930s was gone. Competitively, his […]
The Green Hills of Tyrol is a ubiquitous tune, learnt by virtually all pipers at an early stage. In 1961, the famous Scottish singer Andy Stewart put words to the tune and his song, A Scottish Soldier reached the No. 1 pop chart spot in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. […]
By Jeannie Campbell MBE In mid-April 2020 an article appeared on this website about the legendary Robert Reid (1895-1965). Born in Slamannan, Scotland, Reid was one of the finest pipers of the 20th century and the most dominant piper of the 1920s and 1930s. The article that appeared – ‘The master […]
Entries are invited for the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician Award 2021. The competition is for singers or instrumentalists aged between 16 and 27 with a passion for traditional music. Winners receive a recording session with BBC Radio Scotland, a performance at the Scots Trad Music Awards, an invite […]
Owen MacNiven was a well-known piper of the pre-war era. Born in Paisley in 1916 he was taught initially by John Morrell 1926 before the great Pipe Major Robert Reid took him on. By all accounts, Owen was an excellent piper – and the only one of Robert Reid’s pupils […]
There are a few items in the bagpipe.news diary this week. First of all, Willie McCallum sent us this wonderful photo of the late debonair English actor, David Niven dancing as six pipers play beside him. Willie had been watching a television documentary about the Queen Mary, when the photograph […]
• From the January 2012 Piping Times. By Iain Bruce The hornpipe has had a long run in the history of music but it is not clear how long. The Oxford Companion to Music describes two meanings of the word ‘hornpipe’. In the first place it refers to an obsolete […]
• From the August 1994 Piping Times. A letter from William A. Cromarty of South Orange, NJ, reminded us of the inauguration of the cairn at Boreraig in 1933. He enclosed a cutting from an Ontario newspaper of the time, which contained a report of that famous day. The story […]
The National Piping Centre’s museum has reopened after months of refurbishment. The museum, located in the MacPhater Street building, holds 300 years of piping heritage with items laid out in a logical, themed way. Many new items have been added, including some personal items that were previously housed in the […]
