Show us your Vintage Kilt Photos

[BoldHighlander]

Little appears to be known about the composer of "The Barren Rocks of Aden."

C. A. Malcolm's 1927 publication, The Piper in Peace and War, says he was Pipe Major of the 78th (Ross-shire Buffs) from 1853-1862, including during the Indian Mutiny (1857).

He is known primarily for the first two parts of one of the most popular pipe tunes ever.





http://www.pipetunes.ca/composers.as...composerID=146

[BoldHighlander]

This larger-than-life piping character was known variously as “Big Donald MacLean” and “Donald MacLean of Lewis,” as recalled in Donald MacLeod’s popular 6/8 march. References in piping books to “Pipe Major Donald MacLean” are generally to him.

Born in 1908, his interest in the pipes began in 1916 when his older brother Murdo took up the instrument to help in the recovery of a lung wound suffered in the Great War. Donald borrowed his brother’s chanter and soon both were being taught by Peter Stewart of Barabhas.

(read more here)

[BoldHighlander]

D. R. MacLennan was born in Edinburgh in 1901, son of Lieutenant and Edinburgh Police Superintendent John McLennan, well known authority on pipe music and one of the most prominent piping figures of the day.
D. R. was a younger half-brother of G. S. McLennan and a cousin to the almost equally famous Highland dancer and piper William McLennan. Originally taught pipes by his father, he was later a pupil of Willie Ross and John MacDonald of Inverness.

He enlisted in the Scots Guards in 1919, but transferred in 1925 to the Seaforth Highlanders at Fort George, where he was named Pipe Major of the 1st Battalion. He would hold this post for 13 years. He returned to Fort George in 1938 and spent the war years as Regimental Sergeant Major of the Infantry Training Centre until he was commissioned into the Seaforths. He retired as a Captain in 1948.

He won prizes as a piper, dancer and athlete early in his career, though he would not win the premier prizes until 1956, having been talked into returning to the competition platform by friends a few years earlier. He justified their faith in him by achieving the extraordinary feat of winning the Gold Medals at Oban and Inverness in the same year at the age of 55.

He contributed to the 1935 production of The Standard Settings of the Seaforth Highlanders, perhaps the most popular collection of its day until it was eclipsed by the first Scots Guards collection in 1954....

(read more here)

[BoldHighlander]

Known to pipers as “D.C. Mather,” this prolific composer was born in London, where he attended the London Caledonian School being taught by John MacKenzie (c. 1831-1904), who was a nephew of John Ban MacKenzie and who won the Prize Pipe at Inverness in 1874 and the Gold Medal there in 1876.

Mather was later taught by Robert Meldrum and John MacDougall Gillies. He served at various times as piper to MacDougall of Lunga, Admiral Campbell of Craignish and the Murrays of Lochcarron.

He died in Montana, having moved to the U.S. by way of Canada in 1901 to prospect for gold.

Thought of usually as a composer, he was a successful competitor and all-rounder as well, competing in Highland dancing and athletic events. He won the Gold Medal at Oban in 1891 and at the Prize Pipe at Inverness in 1899. He continued to compete in North America well into his 60s, and the photo shows him at his mining claim in Montana bedecked in awards in 1936.

Among his most popular compositions are the reels Loch Carron, Willie Cummings Rant and The Man from Glengarry, the strathspey Climbing Dunaquaich and the competition march The Stornoway Highland Gathering.

D.C. Mather in Montana, 1936



http://www.pipetunes.ca/composers.as...&composerID=25

[BoldHighlander]

Gather together all those pipers said to be “the best piper of his day,” and G. S. McLennan would probably be the best.

Those who heard him say his fingers were miraculous. His astonishing technical prowess contributed to an important evolution in Highland pipe technique in the early part of the twentieth century. As a composer, the quality and lasting appeal of his tunes are unequalled. As a person he was modest, generous and well-liked by his peers. But on the strength of his light music playing alone his name would almost certainly be included in lists of the top three pipers ever.

He was born in Edinburgh in 1883 to a leading and long-standing piping family and would die in his prime at age 46 in 1929 with his only book of music just off the presses.....

(read more here)

G. S. McLennan in 1906


At age 10, shortly after performing for Queen Victoria.


At age 25, around the time he won his first Clasp at The Northern Meeting.


Piping at the funeral of renowned fidder J. S. Skinner in 1927.


G. S. McLennan in his latter years.

[BoldHighlander]

An excellent player, and winner of the Gold Medal at Oban in 1893, William Robb is best known as the composer of one of the most popular retreat marches ever penned: "When the Battle is Over," commonly known to pipers as "The Battle's O'er."

He was Pipe Major of the 2nd Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders from 1887-1891, and of the 1st Argylls from 1891-1894. He was also famous in his day for a 'test march' he made with P/M James MacKay, another A & S Highlander, in 1895 when the two marched 35 miles from Aldershot to Hyde Park Corner playing alternately all the way.

The 'Notices of Pipers' reports that "at the Glasgow Exhibition Games in 1901, he was 3rd in the competition for piobaireachd (MacDougall Gillies and J. MacColl being 1st and 2nd respectively), and 2nd for marches and for strathspeys and reels (J. MacColl being placed 1st)."



William Robb, from an Oban Times photo published around 1930



http://www.pipetunes.ca/composers.as...&composerID=94

[BoldHighlander]

Only a handful of pipers command iconic status in the world of piping without having won the major solo prizes; Donald Shaw Ramsay is one of those pipers.

He was born in Torpichen, Scotland, near Bathgate, and taught by Sandy Forrest, a pupil of John MacDougall-Gillies. He competed as an amateur and as a professional with promising success. But he did not pursue solo competition after the outbreak of the Second World War when he joined the Highland Light Infantry. He passed the pipe-majors’ course at the Castle under Willie Ross and subsequently became Pipe Major of the 10th H.L.I. out of Wick. At age 20, he was the youngest Pipe Major ever appointed in the British Army. He saw action on the continent and proved himself a dynamic leader even at a young age.

(read more here)

Donald Shaw Ramsay, as pictured in The Edcath Collection around 1953.


Ramsay accepts a retirement gift from incoming Edinburgh Police Pipe Major John D. Burgess in 1957.