When and where did you see your first kilt?

**Riverkilt** · 9th February 12, 07:48 PM

Guessing too, but would guess it was from Dr. Al Hott, a close friend of my father's. They were drinking buddies and made home brewed beer together in our basement. Dr. Hott often showed up in full turnout with his pipes.

Talking about the early 1950s here. Seeing the doc kilted was a common site.

Or, at the Highland Games in Portland my grandfather would take me to or in the Rose Festival Parade in Portland.

**Zardoz** · 9th February 12, 07:55 PM

I'm sure I may have seen them in parades or on TV or movies before, but my first real encounter was seeing the Black Watch pipe and drums in concert while I was in highschool ROTC, so like 1980 or so. I was very taken with the music and the uniforms etc.. I recall I bought some music cassettes.
We had a little meet and greet with some of the pipers and I was very interested in seeing the kilts and stuff up close. I enjoyed talking with them, but my girlfriend at the time Elaine, an English girl who'd only been here a couple years and thought it would be neat to see some countrymen, later said they were "typical arrogant Scots b*stards".

So, even though I got busy with college and life and so on shortly after that, I can say that experience planted a desire to have a kilt that may have taken decades to germinate, but it did with a passion!

I wonder whatever happened to Elaine? she was a very pretty girl...

**unixken** · 9th February 12, 08:06 PM

Originally Posted by Zardoz

I wonder whatever happened to Elaine? she was a very pretty girl...

I've never known an "Elaine" who wasn't a very pretty girl.

**rlloyd** · 9th February 12, 09:34 PM

My father and grandfather apparently took me to the GMHG when I was just a very wee lad, though I don't remember it. Maybe all this was just implanted in my head early on due to that...

**OC Richard** · 9th February 12, 09:46 PM

The first kilt and set of bagpipes I saw in person were at my High School's "International Culture Day" (or whatever it was called). One of the students played the pipes and he gave a performance. It would have been in 1973 or 1974.

His red hair and freckled face added to the overall effect. He also wore a sgian dubh, unthinkable in these "zero tolerance" times!

**ThistleDown** · 9th February 12, 11:24 PM

My father was a Seaforth when I was born, so I suppose my first "memory" is before my first memory. My real first memory was about age three. Every Sunday throughout the last years of the war my parents invited several enlisted sailors from a ship at anchor in "our" cove in rotation to mid-day dinner. I recall one sailor piping and another -- with my father -- dancing.

**hkjrb623** · 9th February 12, 11:32 PM

My first memory in person was definitely parades. First time actually seeing kilts was in pictures of family members that had passed before my birth. My interest in the kilt and heritage makes me wish that I could have met them.

**Corrie Fee** · 9th February 12, 11:35 PM

When I was five or six, over sixty years ago. My father was a drummer in a pipe band.

**John_Carrick** · 10th February 12, 12:39 AM

I spent my first years in Hertfordshire in England. One day when I was about 5 my Mum took me to a shoe shop and another lad came in dressed in a kilt and a smart jacket and tie. I just thought that's a good look. There is a long running science fiction series here called Dr Who which had a kilted character called Jamie in the late 60s and this must have been a formative influence too.
Got my first kilt when I could afford to go North of the border and buy one in my early twenties and seven more over the past few years, now I've grown bigger!
John

**Dale Seago** · 10th February 12, 12:49 AM

I think I may have been an adult when I first saw a kilt "in the wool"; but when I was perhaps 8 years old in one of my classes in school we watched the 1953 Disney movie Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue. I was instantly in love with kilts and pipes, and equally with broadswords, targes, dirks. . .