Andy Grants piping newspage for pipe bands all over the world brought to you by mcleanscotland of Perth

andy grant left - or rupert to his mates

The second of Andy's news items about the Denny & Dunipace Pipe Band on their travels in competitions around Scotland, on the run up to the Worlds at Glasgow second weekend in August ... being Andy, just to confuse you, he has included more than Gourock here!

GOUROCK – EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS:

What can one say about Gourock – it rains a lot! And did so on the European Pipe Band Championships. When I served in Greenock we got issued with scuba gear and flippers – should have taken them that weekend! Torrential doesn’t come close. For the first time in memory the March Past was cancelled and only PMs, DMs and Lead Drummers were asked to go on. The Chieftain made a huge amount of friends in the shortest thank you speech in living memory!

The day started off reasonable well in that it was overcast but that was it. (More than made up for it later!) The Bands started playing just after 09:00 with the Grade 4s and Novice Juvenile Bands taking the lead, closely followed by the Grade 3 and Grade 2 contests. All the Grades were closely fought but in a friendly manner. It’s only after the playing post mortems that Bands tend to relax. You’ll easily spot this behaviour pattern!

The Band finishes playing and the pipers and drummers congregate round each other to find out what happened! Believe it or not, it can be extremely difficult to keep an ear out on everything whilst playing. Not so long ago a World Champion Pipe Major didn’t get his pipes going on time and the Judges missed it! (Aye right!) The contest was a big one, with the last Grade 1 Band finishing playing just after 17:00 – sincerely hope this doesn’t happen at the Worlds! We’ll be there on Sunday!

For the Band (Denny & Dunipace) it was another good day out. Despite having a Judge that usually won’t give us anything, we came third in a quality field. Happy?? I should say so! Some were that happy they nearly didn’t make Callander the next day! where the two Bands had a field day! The Grade 4 won their very first contest (the Pipe Major was last seen walking about the park, sheepdog in tow, shouting to all the Gods ‘At Last!!!!’ The Grade 3 Band won their Grade handsomely and were placed second in Grade 2 behind the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. Mutters were heard from other people that we were robbed but we’re happy with the day’s results. The breaking news of the Band is that the Grade 3 Band gained a ‘major’ prize in winning Grade 3 at Bridge of Allan. This is a mini worlds contest with Bands from America, Canada and South Africa taking part and is seen as the Scottish rehearsal for the World Championships at Glasgow Green on 12th of August. So far this is one of the big highlights of the season. I KNOW a couple were that ‘happy’ they didn’t make work the next day! So there you have it. We’re having an excellent season so far and are trying hard to carry this forward to the Worlds and then COWAL! The postings might be a bit late from Cowal, we celebrate – winning or not! It’s the last Major of the season and throws up many ‘differing’ results depending on the judges, and their hearing aids!

Your own Paul McLean has accepted an invite to spend the weekend with the Band, and come marching with us down the street at night – he may or may not return with sanity (whatever he still has) intact!! It’s a shame I don’t stay where the Band stays – I’d love to watch him trying to get his bed & kit sorted in amongst the experts! This Rupert stays in his caravan lording it over the playing peasants in the Scout Hut!

A successful weekend for the grade 3 band! North Berwick was the first stop, and it proved to be a great result with the grade 3 band winning the grade ahead of a strong field. The grade 4 band played well, finishing 5th in a field of 16. Sunday's visit to Bridge of Allan capped it all off, with the grade 3 band again finishing top of the pile!

Sorry no photos here, Paul could not make these competitions, he was away touring.

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