Originally Posted by
Jock Scot
It’s interesting and striking that the headwear is common in all the pictures. I see a “deer stalker” as an exception in one of the pictures but generally the bonnet choice is a common choice for nearly all of those marching. These days I suspect the front rank of a similar march today would wear a bonnet and the following ranks, even in inclement weather would be mostly bare-headed.
About the bonnets, what I haven't posted are the photos from all those years of the crowd of competing solo pipers (as opposed to a Pipe Band) marching in, and those also exclusively show Balmoral bonnets up till around 1980 when a smattering of Glengarries start to appear.
Also the pipers, like the Stewards, are all in tweed jackets till one piper appears in a black Argyll around 1980.
It always strikes me as odd how few people in the piping community realise how recent the black Argyll + Glengarry + Ghillie kit is.
(I guess it shows how old I am, to regard the 1980s as 'recent'!)
Proud Mountaineer from the Highlands of West Virginia; son of the Revolution and Civil War; first Europeans on the Guyandotte
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