The First 25 Years
The first 25 years
Society chairman Jim Buchanan (below) reflects on a quarter century of the LBPS and its achievements
over the years. I regret not having the space to mention by name more than a few of the numerous people who have been so generous with their time and talents over the last 25 years. Thanks to them all.
The Society was conceived in 1981 but the birth actually took place at a meeting in the College of Piping on 16 April ‘83. It was a lengthy gestation period and there were a number of meetings in Edinburgh and Glasgow before this date. The first AGM took place at the College of piping on 9 June 1984. The office bearers at this AGM were President, Jimmy Wilson; Vice President, Cedric Clarke; Chairman, Mike Rowan; Secretary, Gordon Mooney (soon to be replaced by Jeannie Campbell when Gordon moved to the post of Minutes Secretary and then to Musical Advisor. Gordon became Chairman in 1985); Treasurer, David Hannay and committee member without portfolio, Hugh Cheape. The membership at this first AGM was 80.
Our first Honorary President was the late great Jimmy Wilson who sadly died in February 1984. So far as we know Jimmy was the only piper playing Lowland pipes back in the 1960s, although Rab Wallace and Jamie MacDonald Reid were playing Lowland pipes in the mid-Seventies For an article on Pipe Major Jimmy Wilson, see Piping Times, June 1985 p30-33 and in Common Stock Vol. 2, No.1 in 1985. Jim Gilchrist was the first editor of this journal, Common Stock (then very much a paste and scissors job - Ed.) and the first issue came out in December ‘83.
Regarding makers, Jimmy Anderson (of the Clutha) was playing and making Lowland pipes in the late 1970s. There was a wanted ad from Dr David Stevenson in Piping Times of May 1977 and Heriot and Allan were making smallpipes in 1982. Grainger and Campbell advertised in March ‘82 that they were now making Lowland pipes and the piper in their catalogue was PM Iain MacDonald. Around that time, in Northumberland, Heriot and Allan started making Scottish small pipes, as did Northumbrian pipes maker Colin Ross, who was subsequently elected a honorary committee member.
Jeannie resigned as Secretary and Treasurer in 1990 and Manuel Trucco took over both positions. Our website first appeared in 1995 and is now kept up-to-date by Anita Evans, to whom grateful thanks.
It was an enormous pleasure at our Collogue in Birnam last November to welcome back our founding Chairman, Mike Rowan, who told me wonderful it was “to know that that the LBPS is at the core of a world-wide tradition regained”. And I believe we have been, and continue to be, faithful to these aims.
Early on the committee decided on a programme of annual events and on the biannual publication of Common Stock. Jock Agnew took over as editor from Jim Gilchrist in 1991 but the wheel has come around again and Jim Gilchrist is back in office. Regular events include the Collogue, an invitational concert every second year, the spring competition, a teaching weekend in March and a summer school. The latter was run by Dr. David Hannay for ten years and Tom Robertson has taken over this task.
We have a vigorous policy of publishing music (see www.lbps.net for our catalogue) and have produced an additional tutor for the Scottish smallpipes and Border bagpipes thanks to the vision hard work of Jock Agnew. His tutor “More Power to your Elbow'', with accompanying CD by Iain MacInnes, is about to be reprinted. The reprint of Gordon Mooney's collection of Music for the Lowland and Border Bagpipes is now available thanks to the dedication of Dr George Greig.
Pete Stewart is hard at work on Vol.2 of his history of the Lowland pipes and Matt Seattle is producing the first of a series of monographs on Border tunes which will soon be published on our website (see P10). We are introducing a “come and try” afternoon to the Collogue this November as part of our continuing efforts to introduce playing Scottish small pipes and Border pipes to young people.
With no-one to pass on music and techniques from our discontinued tradition, the new generation of “cauld wind” pipers, were glad to look to the Northumbrian Pipers' Society (particularly Colin Ross and Robbie Greensitt) for help in making reeds and instruments in the early days. The Society owes a tremendous amount to them and to Ann Sessoms for her pioneering work on smallpipe reeds suitable for the Scottish smallpipe..
Over the last 25 years the Society has grown from a group of like-minded friends into a truly international organisation with around 370 members in many far-flung places. I wish to make mention of the unstinted work and phenomenal energy of our past secretary Rona (nee Macdonald) Dawson, who from 1995 to 2007 was a powerful moving force within the Society and kept a number of chairmen on the straight and narrow.
Initially at the instigation of Hamish Moore, the Society has staged a number of high- profile concerts, with players from as far away as Cape Breton, Sardinia, Brittany and Hungary, as well as the cream of Scottish talent. Dr Andy Hunter, a past chairman with much experience of Brittany (and a fine singer), helped to bring a European outlook to the Society.
The truth about any revivalist movement - and the LBPS is at heart one such - is that after a period of obscurity it is necessary not only to have a restoration of the availability of the instruments but also to find enthusiastic players. Happily, there are now a number of well- established, professional makers producing pipes of the highest quality, and their instruments have been adopted by numerous folk groups as well as countless individuals.
I recently attended the tenth anniversary dinner of the National Piping Centre in Glasgow and was privileged to hear Simon McKerrell and Finlay Macdonald playing duets on Border and uilleann pipes in the finale of a grand concert to celebrate the occasion. It was gratifying to hear Border pipes and Border music in such a setting.
So what of the next quarter Century? By the time that is past I will be 95 (inshallah) and am reminded that you don't stop playing when you grow old - you grow old when you stop playing! The Society will be bound to change, but we're ‘no feart'. So here's tae us, and a huge thanks to all who have given and continue to give so much to the LBPS!
