It's an exciting time, isn't it, Mull?

I remember it so well, though it was 35 years ago.

Here I was, a new piper, 19 years old, just moved to the big city from the boonies, who had had to teach myself due to there being nobody around.

I had heard about the existence of a pipe band who practised closeby.

I went down to their practice hall and I was blown away. I'd never heard a pipe band in person-heck, I'd only once heard a piper in person!

They sounded fantastic to me. At the time I new nothing about band grade levels etc but they were a Grade Two band and many of the pipers, who at that time were in their mid twenties, had won loads of solo competitions in their teens and were "Professional" grade solo pipers.

It was extremely entertaining just to sit off in the corner and listen to them play.

Nobody came over and said "hi" that first night. Indeed I attended each week for months and nobody ever came over to my spot in the corner to ask who I was.

Initially I just came to listen. Then I started bringing a tape recorder and I taped their tunes. At home I found music to some of their tunes in The Scots Guards or Queens Own Highlanders books. So after a while I would sit in my spot in the far-off corner and toot along on my practice chanter while the band played.

After a few months of this, one night the youngest piper in the band, just a year or two older than myself perhaps but a fantastic player, walked over to my spot in the corner and plopped down a pile of music on the table in front of me. I don't recall him saying anything.

Well it was like Christmas morning, the night I got all the band music! Or maybe more like discovering the Rosetta Stone. Here it was, all the music I had been listening to, unlocked for me. (I had figured out some of it by ear but it was great to know for sure what all the gracenotes were etc.)

So now I sat off in my corner happily tooting away on ALL the band tunes, week after week.

Eventually the Pipe Major one night came up and introduced himself and asked me to play something. I did. He said "you're doing everything more or less right" and told me to bring my pipes.

Well talk about being the worst piper in the band!!! This was a band full of top-level players and there I was standing in the circle trying to figure out how to "play with others". I'd never done that before. I was WAY out of my league. But I was young and determined and I practiced hours each day and eventually I was invited to play on the band's gigs. They had loads of gigs, paying gigs, which brought a lot of money into the band.

So one day I went over to the Pipe Major's house; he had closets full of feather bonnets and doublets and crossbelts and spats and all that stuff. The band wore Full Dress for gigs. It was like Christmas morning all over again, getting kitted out in all that finery! I wish I had just one photo of the band, or of me, wearing that stuff.

After a year or so I got to play in band competition. We won Grade Two somewhere and they gave me the trophy, saying "all of us have piles of those already". I still treasure that thing!

So anyhow good luck in your piping journey!