![]() ![]() ![]() ‘Remember that when the Games used to be on the field we used to have to form up outside the Northern Meeting Rooms and march down over the bridge to the Games field, and woe betide you if you couldn’t answer your name and play, for you weren’t allowed to compete if you’d missed it…This next picture is Oban in 1906, and that’s the famous John MacDougall Gillies playing piobaireachd….’ ‘There’s Angus Macpherson Jim Taylor at the back (the tall figure) I think old Bob Meldrum, and I think G.S. He was Pipe Major of the Gordon Highlanders. ![]() Here he is showing the audience an old photograph from the 1903 Northern Meeting : ‘On the far right, is Charlie Dunbar DCM. One of the first speakers at Minard was DR MacLennan, GS’s half brother. At John’s invitation, I attended my first Conference four years later, 1976, at Middleton Hall, Midlothian. The first, held in Minard Castle on the shores of Loch Fyne, attracted both professional pipers, judges, and amateur enthusiast. It is unique.įirst mooted by John MacFadyen, with the support of Seumas MacNeill and Genenral Frank Richardson, it sprang up just over half a century ago, in 1972 to be exact. It can be difficult to re-kindle enthusiasm after so long a gap, easy-option Zoom meetings making us all lazy and complacent.īut the benefit of human contact and a face to face welcome cannot be underestimated, and the Conference has been part of the furniture in the piping world since as far back as many can remember. A week from now we will have the first Piobaireachd Society Conference since 2019.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |