A "Folkie" and a kiltie

**Aussie_Don** · 6th July 13, 07:20 PM

Hi,

I live in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. I'd already bought
a kilt or two when I first discovered X-Marks.

I'm into folk music, and decided a while ago that getting and
wearing a kilt was one way to celebrate my ancestry at folk
festivals. (My maternal grandmother's surname was Gregory
AKA MacGregor.) According to my parents, there were a number
of other Scotts in the family tree. The mother of the grandmother
mentioned was a Hadley - also Scottish. And my father said that
a couple of generations back we had Mulls in the family.

So, what I'm saying is that, "I come by it honestly..." I've figured
that if, in Australia, a person with 25% or less aboriginal ancestry
is an aboriginal Australian, then by the same reasoning, I'm
Scottish, even with a German surname.

I've "borrowed" the image of the Macgregor Modern sett from
the Clan Gregor website as an avatar -- mor on that in a bit.

When the ones on order arrive, I'll have three kilts -- a 5
yard from Buy-a-Kilt in MacGregor hunting ancient, an 8
yard (also from BaK) in MacGregor modern, and one of
Rockey's casual kilts in MacGregor.

There's a bit of a story in this that may be useful for those
looking to buy a first kilt. I was a bit lacking in information
when I started -- just had a look around on the Internet and
found Buy a Kilt, looked up MacGregor and found a bunch
of tartans. I rather liked the colours of the hunting ancient
and got the first kilt in that tartan.

Now don't misunderstand me, there is absolutely nothing
wrong in choosing a tartan on the basis that it looks good.
BUT... and this is a largish but -- I later found the Clan
MacGregor website and discovered some comments by the
clan chief decrying the number of tartans sold as MacGregor
that he did not recognise as MacGregor tartans. The hunting
tartan, was recognised as not a hunting tartan, but as the
MacGregor of Cardney tartan.

So the moral of the story is that if you're new to tartans and
kilts and want to wear one that correctly reflects your heritage,
do a bit of research in looking for your clan and what they may
say about the tartans available.

This has got a bit long - sorry, but I'll close with a little story.

I was recently at the Australian National Celtic Festival and
was, of course, wearing my kilt. I ran into an old mate who
I hadn't seen for a while, in his kilt. (I didn't know he had one.)
We started comparing the construction, etc and both realised
we were wearing kilts from Buy-a-Kilt. Another kilted bloke
heard us taking and joined the conversation. He'd tried to get
a kilt made by some other company, in his clan tartan. I
can't remember what clan it was, but it was a less common
tartan. When the kilt arrived, it was the wrong tartan. He
complained and the company (who shall remain nameless) said,
"You'll get used to it!" I simply cannot imaging the nice folk at
BaK saying asomething like that.

Anyway, hello to all the rabble.

-Don