Time to dig deep folks. The Army School of Piping have lost serving pipers and drummers in recent conflicts. Now to commemorate all those who have given their lives, the School is launching an appeal to raise £40,000 for a new memorial to be sited at Inchdrewer House in Edinburgh. The memorial will take the form of a cairn with a piper on top. The design will be used for the new trophy to be awarded to the overall champion in the contest to be held on October 5 at Inchdrewer and run in conjunction with the CPA. Cheques for the memorial should be made payable to ASBM&HD. Captain Gordon Rowan said: ‘Over the years many pipers and drummers have given their lives, in various conflicts, in the service of our country. In honour of those brave pipers and drummers, it is proposed to build a Memorial at Inchdrewer House. It is an expensive project, but so far staff and students at ASBM&HD have raised funds towards the cost of materials and construction. This has been raised through internal fundraising events such as sponsored bike rides, quiz nights – and leg waxing! The plan is making good progress and the memorial is hoped to be completed and unveiled in 2013. Although all fundraising to date has been driven internally at ASBM&HD, we would now like to offer you the opportunity to contribute towards this extremely worthy cause. We feel that any financial support you are able to offer would strengthen the links between our organisations and would be greatly appreciated.‘ Send cheques to Captain Gordon Rowan (The Royal Regiment of Scotland), Second in Command, THE ARMY SCHOOL OF BAGPIPE MUSIC and HIGHLAND DRUMMING, Inchdrewer House, 299 Colinton Road, EDINBURGH EH13  0LA.
Can anyone think of a more worthwhile cause? I can’t.
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Further info on the new Army contest: it will be open to P&A and B&C grade players; sponsorship has been secured from a bagpipe manufacturer and negotiations are continuing with a purveyor of the finest liquid refreshment – not Irn Bru.
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The memorial will be unveiled on a chosen Sunday, probably the day after the Army’s own piping and drumming championship.
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Should have run this picture a while ago of successful students at the Autumn School. They are pictured with their tutor Iain Watson:

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Iain Currie (Denmark): ‘I entered the recent 2/4 March composing competition which was won by Dr. Bruce Thompson (with Angus Lawrie second). Having now heard the winning tunes, and enjoyed them a lot, is it possible to obtain the music for both? Just thought I would ask, as both would be good to learn.’ Will have something in the next PT Iain.
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CoP Radio will be out on Tuesday featuring Jonathan Graham, Dr Peter McCalister, Alastair Dunn, Gary Carruthers and George Watson’s College PB.
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Sorry to hear of the passing of Alasdair Milne (82) this week. It was Alasdair who, when he was Controller,  really put piping on the map at BBC Scotland. I’ll have an obituary in the PT in due course. My eye was drawn to an obit in one of the quality broadsheets. It seems Alasdair was born in India but brought up in Edinburgh by his grandfather. A right old sod he sounds too. Apparently he used to insist that the young Milne treat all those from Glasgow as inferior forms of life. You read about this sort of thing but you don’t believe it really exists. I could maybe understand the converse being the case right enough! (Only joking, only joking). Certainly I never found Alasdair to be like that any time I spoke to him and presumably this extremely intelligent man would have sussed out my accent rapido. The was at the John MacFadyen Trust Lecture in 2002 when he complained to me that the Trust had no money left having spent it all on sponsoring some thesis on piobaireachd and Gaelic song. Alasdair’s funeral is in London and I hope someone can be found to play one of his favourite tunes, Lament for Colin Roy, Black Donald, Old Woman’s Lullaby, Mary’s Praise or the Laird of Anapool.
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Did anyone else notice this over the New Year period? The pix are of a piper playing Amazing Grace with the popular Andre Rieu orchestra. The woman in question is his clarinettist who doubles on pipes. Can’t do the GHB any harm having this kind of exposure.

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