A Newsletter from Begg Bagpipes

The first major Championship of 2016 is not far off now - it's being held on the 21st May in St James' Park, Paisley. This could be a great venue with easy access from the motorway and a stone's throw from Glasgow Airport. Our family has close ties with Paisley, with brother Bill and sister Liz both having been born there. Bill also played fiddle many years ago with a famous Paisley band - the Tannahill Weavers, so named after the Paisley poet Robert Tannahill and Paisley's world renowned weaving industry. So we are all hoping the British Championships will be a big success.

If you are in the area this year, please pop into our shop in Glasgow. We are here to help and advise, and have the great advantage of being able to offer independent views on any aspect of Piping. It's now some 8+ years since we launched our newsletter and we hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as we have enjoyed producing it. We are very proud it has been so well received and our open rate is great in every issue. We trust we are giving added value to you and the Piping community at large and providing news, topics and a perspective which are completely different to other publications - with the added bonus which will appeal to anyone with a Scot's gene in their body - it's all free!

We are very involved with the Spirit of Scotland superband as they prepare for the forthcoming competitions and have about 2/3rds of the band now fitted out with Begg sheepskin bags. It's quite full-on work just now for me and for the players but it's going to add great spice to this year's events - I'm sure we are all looking forward to see if they can deliver what such a line-up of talent would suggest. It's a good mixture of youth and experience and I'm glad to be helping them achieve what I'm sure will be a really outstanding sound.

Colin MacLellan is a member of the SOS and I have taken the opportunity to stock his late father Captain John A. MacLellan's new book and cds on piobaireachd compositions. It's one of the best produced books I've seen in recent times, with pictures throughout and stories behind the tunes. You get a real feeling of John the man and his life and family - brilliant

I have just re-stocked with the fast selling book Arranged by C Muirhead. It's quite the opposite to that of Captain MacLellan's as it contains pop tunes for the pipes, but this really shows the diversity of piping.

For those of you who having been following my recent rantings about natural materials being far superior to synthetics and the story about Ibrox Stadium, I would like to bring the subject to a close (for the time being that is!). Here is a nice tale and our thanks go to Hamish MacLeod for sending it in:

Apropos playing surfaces, an American Footballer was once asked whether he preferred playing on grass or astroturf. He thought about it for a moment, then said, “Hell man, I don’t know. I ain’t smoked me no astroturf!”

It was pleasing that a customer from Australia bought the lovely Hardie silver and ivory pipes which we featured in last month's newsletter. He let me know he is delighted with the pipes and will be visiting our shop in August as part of his honeymoon trip to Scotland. We assume it was a difficult choice between the good lady and the pipes but he's now got both!

On the back of this, we have a lovely full ivory set for sale at a potentially fantastic price. They appear to be of Lawrie origin with a creamy ivory, and are in an "as new" condition dating from the 1950s. They come complete with a traditional box and have been fully checked and serviced by us - they sound as good as they look. They are on sale in the shop for £1900 but for added interest to this newsletter, I will put them up for a bit of an auction - the opening bid needs to be above £1200 and the auction closes on May 31st. If you are outbid, I will let you know so that you may wish to increase your offer - you will of course have to trust me that I am not artificially inflating the price!

As we all get geared up for the Northern Hemisphere season, make sure your drones are in better order with 10 % OFF all drone reeds - cane and synthetic. Buy 6 or more and take 20% OFF. James will apply the discount at order payment stage so the prices on the site are before the discount. They are also free post worldwide and have no VAT if the destination is outside of the European Union.

Some of our long standing readers may recall we ran a competition in 2010 to find Begg Bagpipes Fanatic of the Year and the clear winner was a young lad from Sussex Tom Curd. Well, we are pleased to report that Tom has not taken his foot off the gas since then and in the midst of teaching, running his own Band, doing solo gigs and playing for Grade I Dowco Triumph Street, he has just published a book of his own compositions - Playing in the Dark. All great stuff! Check out more about Tom on his website and our Dec 2010 article.

I bumped into my good friend Davy Wotherspoon the other day and had a coffee - yes, nothing stronger!!!! He is a well known player and played in various bands - Shotts, Toyota, Babcock Renfrew to name a few and he had a good run with Lomond and Clyde Pipe Band as P/M.

Davy has formed a new outfit to challenge in Grade 2 and they are very much in the same sort of mould as the Spirit of Scotland - the ethos is personal practice but with sustained bursts together as a band. I believe the recent weekend in Oban reflected well on this approach. It's best wishes to the band for the season and we shall be following their progress closely.

If you would like to report on any aspect of the Piping World from wherever you live, or if you would like to comment on any articles or issues, we'd be pleased to hear from you. Email to bill@beggbagpipes.com

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