North Berwick: A Beautiful Day on the East Coast


The bus arrived promptly at 8:45 this morning, and we made the 1.5 hour trip to North Berwick in good time. This year, the driver brought us into the town and ther games park from the other side, and we got a stunning view of the East coast, Tantallon Castle [see below] and other natural features.

We spent an hour in the morning working on the bagpipe sound and drums, had the lunch that we packed at the residence, and then got down to playing. The Grade 2 event went well. We played everyone, had a good sound, and played well. There is room to improve for sure. We did improve on some aspects when we competed again in the Grade 1 event, but by then the players were tired, and the performance was physically much harder, and past our best. Still, the drummers had a better second run, and some aspects of the piping were better, in part because it was more relaxed.

We recorded the Grade 2 event on video, and you can listen to it HERE

Result: we were 4th of 9 grade 2 bands. Although initially this is a step back from the 2nd prize we got here last year, this was a stronger field than last year, with three excellent Grade 2 bands ahead of us. Full results at www.rspba.org


Aside from a great view of the castle, it was great to see so many pipe band friends there. Alberta Caledonia had two very strong performances to win the Grade 1 events, and the Gaelic College PB from Cape Breton did well in Grade 3. Also in the prizes was Ogden Legion from Calgary. We saw P/M Alex Cupples and his son Ian. They were visiting and came out to the Games. Also bumped into a wide variety of folk, from former Edinburgh Police and Babcock-Renfrew P/M Iain McLeod, to Major Gavin Stoddart, who was just at the piping school in Regina.

Thanks to everyone for their posts and emails. We are off to Bridge of Allan in the morning, and we play around 12:30 pm. Looking forward to a better performance, although a prize will a be a tough order, b/c there are more bands, and many more good bands likely to be there, and most of them playing after us.

More to come.