Magic with No Borders (Prosit!)

It’s the last day of August and, for the second time in about a month, I’ve found myself in the stunning pastoral countryside of rural Germany – for piping. What else!
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Adventures in Judging Piping & Drumming (and a photo)

Aside from getting a front row seat to good music, the best part about travelling around the place judging pipers and drummers is the people you meet. At its heart a good pipe band is a social club and that goes, too, for the judging game. While judges in most places are compensated for expenses and receive a fee, most don’t sit in judgement for the money. Travelling to games usually involves some degree of tedium – a little traffic here, a crabby border agent there. Its new friends made and old friendships renewed that is the best part of judging (that and the always five star accommodation, of course).
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Among the Best Ever Piping Events in Ontario: The 43rd Livingstone Invitational

My first time attending the annual Livingstone Invitational piping contest was in 1980. Then I was a kid in senior amateur solo piping – “grade one”. Like now, I was a keener. Loved the piping. Like now, I thought I knew a lot more than I did. I was then taught by Bill Livingstone, Jr. – so likely had a sort of Livingstone bias: his Old Man – the founder of the gathering – was a great character, and, I have to say, I’m grateful to have known Bill, Sr. a little.
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Happy Birthday: Live your life and forget your age

In my usual January Glasgow itinerancy I happened to meet up this late afternoon for a catch-up with a Scots friend, in this case, young Callum Wyndd. Callum, you may know, is a real up-and-comer in the solo piping world and a person I came to know as a member of the Glasgow Police Pipe Band (as the band was then known).
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Worlds Week Beckons: Rottenrow, Glasgow 1992

The World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, is looming large. Its set to go August 12-13 – just days away. Starting around now pipers, drummers and their supporters from outside of Scotland have begun making their way through what we’ve heard to be an unpleasant steeple-chase of under-staffed airports and, likely, less-than-smooth travel experiences (an aside: I’ve travelled from YYZ to GLA twice since October of last year: all has been fine – touch wood – so good luck to all, there’s hope).
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Uncle John & D-Day, 78 years ago today

Today marks the 78th anniversary of the historic D-Day operation. On June 6, 1944, in the midst of World War II, Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy in Nazi-occupied France

My dad’s brother, John, was a sergeant in the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment, known in WWII as the 27th Armoured Regiment.

I have in my possession a number of Uncle John’s souvenirs and war-time artefacts. A couple of pages of one is shown here from a slim, cardboard-covered, 10 by 16 centimetres “Soldier’s Service Book”.
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P/M Evan MacRae: Magazine Cover Star

A little diversion for your late-winter’s day: a 1950’s photojournalist’s look at Pipe Major Evan MacRae. You’ll know that Evan MacRae was a top-line piper and great contributor to the “carrying stream” of piping tradition of not-so-long ago.
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Art and Gaelic Life in the Eastern Townships

This week I had the chance to head to the Homeland. To Quebec: the Eastern Townships, or L’Estrie, to Francophones. And, as anyone might, I took it.
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John MacDonald on the Radio at 84

Anyone who has visited the excellent G S McLennan website will have seen a smashing photograph of John MacDonald of Inverness. I include it here for easy reference (well, for those click-averse). This version is colourized and “enhanced” – and I’m not entirely sure its better than the original.
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GS & Lawyers: King George Versus Army

A follow on – of sorts – to the David Glen and Peter Henderson court shenanigans of 1900. I happened on the attached clippings following my musings on Dave and Pete’s court tussle(I say “happened” but it was GS McLennan’s grandson who kindly passed along – I think he prefers anonymity but knowing the source is important provenance for these things. And, not just that, shines a light on the inspiring importance the family has always viewed G S McLennan’s legacy).
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