World Pipe Band Championships 2011

Yesterday I was in Glasgow Green to attend the 2011 World Pipe Band Championships.

230 pipe bands attended, taking part in competition across several grades, with the Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band being crowned World Champions.

The weather managed to stay reasonably dry, and there was plenty to see - it was certainly a busy day!

There's a fine military tradition where pipe bands are concerned, and while there didn't seem to be any bands from the Scottish regiments, there were several others with names that had a hint of the military tradition, starting obviously with the World Champions, named after the famous Field Marshal, "Monty" himself.

Not that there were no regiments present - the 1st Royal Tank Regiment were present in the 4B grade, and the 3B Grade saw the presence of the 101st Northumbrian Regiment, Royal Artillery - or the Tyneside Scottish as they might be better known.



We stayed to watch the Grade 4A final, and here was found a band which clearly honours the fallen of the Great War - Thiepval Memorial Pipe Band. You probably can't see it in this video, but their bagpipe covers have an image of the famous memorial on them.



The Grade 4A was won by Scottish Borders Pipe Band with a fine performance it's worth highlighting here:



All in all, it was a fantastic day out with plenty to see and do. I would highly recommend checking the dedicated page on the BBC website to watch the Grade One performances, and make sure you book your tickets for next years contest - I'll see you there!

Beating Retreat at Edinburgh Castle

While today there is still a military presence in Edinburgh Castle, the garrison there is largely for administrative and ceremonial purposes. Beating the Retreat is no longer required to mark the end of a soldier's day at the castle, but the event still place at certain times.

On the 3rd June this year Dennis and Morag White were presnt for the Beating the retreat ceremony which was performed by the Edinburgh Postal Pipe Band and Dancers.

My thanks to Morag and Dennis for the following images and video. For more information, I've also scanned the programme of events, which you can see after the video.

Pipefest Normandy

From http://www.pipefest.com/normandy/

Pipefest Normandy pays tribute to Piper Bill Millin who was personal piper to Lord Lovat on D-Day and piped the invasion forces on to the shores of France; going to war with his bagpipe, he played as men fell all around him. Pipefest Normandy follows in the footsteps of Bill Millin, with events planned on Sword Beach, Pegasus Bridge and Caen.

Pipefest Normandy is part of a campaign led by the D-Day Piper Bill Millin Association to build a statue near Sword Beach to celebrate Bill Millin and remember those that fell on D-Day. This campaign sets out to raise enough funds to build this statue – with the unveiling planned during Pipefest Normandy. All pipers and drummers are asked to become involved. For more information please visit the campaign site: www.ddaypiperbillmillin.com

As part of this campaign Pipe Bands, Pipers, Drummers and Drum Mayors from all over the World are invited to take part in Pipefest Normandy and help pay tribute to Piper Bill Millin. Pipefest Normandy will be held on the weekend, 4-5 June 2011, with lots to do for players and families. Apart from Pipefest events there is a huge amount to explore in Normandie including museums, galleries and famous landmarks.

Army pipes and drummers return to Stirling Castle

I've just discovered the Stirling Castle blog, where this article was posted today.



The rhythm of daily life for generations of soldiers based at Stirling Castle was dictated by pipers and drummers. On March 19 they make a welcome return when we host a day of competitions between four bands made up of members of the Army’s University Officer Training Corps (UOTC). It should be quite a spectacle for visitors. From 10am onwards the 60 talented young military musicians, from all over Scotland, will challenge each other to decide the best individual, small group and massed band performances. They will play in different parts of the castle, scrutinised by judges, but will unite towards the end of the day to Beat the Retreat.
 
Up until the mid-60s the castle was the training depot for the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, taking raw recruits and turning them into soldiers. Each morning they were roused by a piper and a drummer – playing his bugle. Thereafter their drills, parades, meals and eventually their bed time was all signalled by the musicians. The musicians were the mechanism that made regimental life run like clockwork.

Anyone coming to see the competition, or cheer on someone taking part, will probably enjoy a visit to the regimental museum of The Argyll’s which is based at the castle. They can see historic items like a Boer War drum, pierced by an enemy bullet. There are also the pipes which belonged to Eric Moss, an officer who risked his life to hide regimental silver from the Japanese at the fall of Singapore. He kept hold of his pipes while a prisoner, but the pipe bag rotted in the atrocious conditions. However, he created an improvised replacement in order to perform a morale-boosting concert for his comrades.

All those taking part in this weekend’s Northern Lights Pipes and Drums Competition are studying for degrees at universities close to home in Stirling, or further afield in Edinburgh, Glasgow or Aberdeen. After graduation, some may join the Army full time and continue the traditions of those remembered in the museum.

Piper's heroic last stand

An interesting story we found from Asia recently. Article by Simon Parry:

Ron Abbott's children at the Sai Wan War Memorial where Pipe-Major Mackie is commemorated.

It was the day when, in one corner of the city at least, all that stood between the invading Japanese army and the conquest of Hong Kong was a lone Scotsman armed with nothing but a set of bagpipes.

Pipe-Major William Craigie Keith Mackie was reportedly last seen alive on Christmas Eve, 1941, at Stanley, Hong Kong, playing the tunes "Cock O' the North" and "Heilan' Laddie" as the Japanese attacked.

Aged 59, Pipe-Major Mackie was a retired soldier who came to work in Hong Kong between the two world wars. A member of the volunteer defence force, he died in the last stand of British Commonwealth forces around Stanley just a day before Hong Kong was surrendered to the Japanese.

His story - with Japanese invaders finding one of the last lines of defence in Stanley not a gun post but a Scotsman with a set of bagpipes and a repertoire of Highland tunes - confirms Hong Kong's powerful and durable bond with the instrument.

Ron Abbott, chairman of the Hong Kong Piping Society, has researched the story of the heroic piper's last stand and has found that before moving to the Far East, Mackie served in World War I where he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for his service in France.

His name is recorded at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Sai Wan in Hong Kong as well as the war memorial at St John's Church in his native Dumfries, Scotland.

Abbott said Mackie was a member of the Scottish company of the Hong Kong Volunteer Corps which formed its own Pipes and Drums unit in 1920. A 1932 China Mail article traced by Abbott describes how a performance was led by "pipers under Pipe-Major Mackie".

Today, bagpipe bands are flourishing in communities across Asia including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and even Shanghai and Beijing. Japan, meanwhile, has a large number of its own pipe bands and even has its own annual Highland Games. Pipe-Major Mackie would undoubtedly have approved.

Pipe-Major Mackie's details recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission can be viewed here.

The Second World War memorial in St John's Church, Dumfries can be viewed on the Scottish War Memorials Project site.

The SMRG Advent Calendar - Day 24

For today's advent calendar entry, think of this as a Christmas carol.

This scene is from the film Joyeux Noel, which is set around the time of the "Christmas Truce" of 1914. The film features a company of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, here singing and playing the pipes in the trenches.

This scene does not feature the subtitles of the foreign soldiers, so here (courtesy of the original uploader to YouTube) is a translation of those lines of dialogue:

German Soldier: They seem to be having quite a party. Don't you want to? This is Anna Sörensen.
Anna: Good Evening.
Soldiers: Good Evening.
German Lieutenant: What is this? Are you crazy, bringing this lady with you?
German Soldier: Lieutenant, I've convinced the Crown Prince that a little music on Christmas Eve won't do any harm.
German Lieutenant: Very well. Start singing, then.

French Soldier: Lieutenant, come quickly! Something weird is happening there!
French Soldier: I don't like the look of this, Lieutenant. Might be a diversion?

German Lieutenant: Sprink! Come down from there!

German Soldier: Good evening, Englishmen!
Scottish Soldier: Good evening, Germans, but we're not English, we're Scottish!
German Lieutenant: Alright, that was nice and all, but we're going back now. This is not the Berlin opera house.
German Soldier: You're right. This is better than Berlin.

French Soldier: Well, look at that. That beats everything. A summit meeting in No-Man's-Land, and we're not invited!
French Lieutenant: Shut it, Ponchel. What kind of mess is this?

French Soldier: What are they doing there?
French Soldier: Maybe the Germans have had enough. Maybe they're surrendering?
French Soldier: That would surprise me.
French Lieutenant: Ponchel, give me a bottle of champagne, and my cup.

The SMRG Advent Calendar - Day 17

Today's advent calendar is a sequence of clips from "The Longest Day" which features Piper-Major Leslie de Laspee playing Piper Bill Millin.

Millin's page on Wikipedia is worth a read. I'm always amused by the story of the Germans not shooting Millin as they didn't want to waste ammunition on a man who had clearly lost his mind!

The SMRG Advent Calendar - Day 10

A music video for Day 10 of our Advent Calendar. I'll let the YoutTube description speak for itself:

"One of Scotland's top Pipers Major RTD Gavin Stoddart MBE BEM and Hawick singer song writer Alan Brydon of Scocha perform their song for Passchendaele during the Tattoo on Flanders in August 2007. The song was specially commissioned by the organisers of the new memorial to fallen Scots at Passchendaele, Flanders."

The SMRG Advent Calendar - Day 2

After yesterday's rather uninteresting pair of boots, let's see what's behind the little cardboard window marked with a 2, shall we?

Well, it's another picture....

Also on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, these are the medals of Piper Daniel Laidlaw.

Laidlaw was a Piper with the 7th Battalion of the King's Own Scottish Borderers, and on the first day of the Battle of Loos, he carried out an act of bravery which earned him the Victoria Cross.

His citation reads:

"For most conspicuous bravery prior to an assault on German trenches near Loos and Hill 70 on 25 September 1915. During the worst of the bombardment, Piper Laidlaw, seeing that his company was badly shaken from the effects of gas, with absolute coolness and disregard of danger, mounted the parapet, marched up and down and played company out of the trench. The effect of his splendid example was immediate and the company dashed out to the assault. Piper Laidlaw continued playing his pipes until he was wounded."

It's not particularly well-known that you can see Laidlaw playing his pipes on film. The film "Forgotten Men", released in 1930 features an appearance from Laidlaw playing the tune he had piped the 7th KOSB over the top in 1915. If you ever get a chance to see the film, it''s worth watching.

Laidlaw died in 1950, and despite this page stating his medals are not publicly held, you can see them in the National Museum.

A slice of the VC pie

There's something about a Victoria Cross. Everyone knows it is something special and the people who have been awarded them are a cut above the rest of us. In recent years this seems to have led to a determination in some local communities to recognise their local V.C.s.

Recently a second V.C. memorial was unveiled in Glasgow. In 2007 a memorial was erected near the Cathedral to all of Glasgow's Victoria Cross recipients but the most recent one is specifically to three men from Bridgeton who were awarded it. One of the men, Piper James Richardson, is also commemorated on the Lanarkshire V.C. Memorial because he was born in Bellshill. Richardson is again commemorated with a statue in Chilliwack, British Columbia because his family had left Glasgow for Canada in 1911.

Bridgeton, Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Chilliwack; they all want a piece of the aura that surrounds the memory of James Richardson V.C. and who can blame them. Even amongst Victoria Cross lore there is something special about James Richardson's story. Not just his life and selfless death, but also the fact his pipes lay unrecognised for years in a Scottish school.

An American filmmaker wants a piece of the Richardson V.C. pie now too. He has started production on a television documentary on Richardson V.C. Modern historical documentaries insist on reconstructions using actors. I wonder if the television Richardson will be a strapping Canadian frontiersman or a wee Glasgow Keelie?

On this day in Scottish military history #7 - 1920, Unveiling of the war memorial in Nenthorn, Roxburghshire

On this day in Scottish military history #7 - 1920, Unveiling of the war memorial in Nenthorn, Roxburghshire.

November 1920 was a busy time for war memorial unveilings. Many church memorials were completed and smaller civic war memorials were also being unveiled in time for the second Remembrance Day. On this day ninety years ago the Earl of Haddington unveiled the Nenthorn War Memorial.

Nenthorn’s memorial cross listed twelve names. Four of them had been pipers in the 1/4th Bn King’s own Scottish Borderers and all had four had died in Gallipoli. Two of them were killed on the same day, 12th July 1915, when the 1/4th KOSB practically ceased to exist.

I don’t think I’ve seen another memorial which lists four pipers amongst the dead and for pipers to make up one third of the total is unprecedented anywhere else in Scotland.

After the Second World War a further four names were added.

Transcription of the names on the Nenthorn War Memorial:

1914-1918

ELLIOT, Frank , Trooper , Scottish Horse
GIBB, William , Private , King's Own Scottish Borderers
GRANT, Robert , Private , King's Own Scottish Borderers
HARDIE, James , Private , 13th Bn Canadian Expeditionary Force
HARDIE, Thomas , Sergeant , Seaforth Highlanders
HENDRY, Andrew , Piper , 4th Bn King's Own Scottish Borderers
INGLIS, Andrew , Lance Corporal , Machine Gun Corps
KERR, James , Piper , 4th Bn King's Own Scottish Borderers
LUNHAM, Thomas , Piper , 4th Bn King's Own Scottish Borderers
MOFFAT, Thomas , Private , King's Own Scottish Borderers
ROBERTSON, Robert , Private , Royal Scots
WOOD, Frank , Piper , 4th Bn King's Own Scottish Borderers

1939-1945

FERGUSON, Alexander , Private , Army Catering Corps
FRIZZEL, James , Private , Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
PURVES, George , Corporal , Royal Marines
THOMSON, Ronald R , Wing Commander DFC , Royal Air Force

Piper Bill Millin

Sad to hear of the death of Bill Millin, the Piper who accompanied Lord Lovat on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.

Read the Obituary in The Telegraph.