Strathclyde Police Pipe Band

I arrived in Scotland after 32 hours of travelling last Tuesday and was at the Strathclyde Police band practice about 5 hours later. After two practices last week and being issued with a set of McCallum bagpipes (complete with sheepskin bag) I finally got to spend some one on one time with the Pipe Major on the weekend. Played at practice with the full band last night and pipes were singing. Will have to go in early tonight to get issued with uniform etc.

We have practice every night this week in the lead up to the European Championships on Saturday. The band is quite confident that we will do well.

I have been to the College of Piping and spoke to Rab Wallace about their new exam syllabus. Will get a chance to go over it in more detail shortly no doubt. Today I went to see James C Begg bagpipes who will be stocking my book and Pipe Dreams, the makers of Ezeedrone and Ezee PC reeds. Amazing workshop, very automated and clinical, not a speck of dust to be seen! Everyone seems blown away by the handbook and website. I am amazed the book seems to be selling so well as I am yet to see it displayed on a shelf anywhere, quite dissapointing.

So far there is quite a lot of interest here in the new CD and many good comments on the quality. A few shops want to stock it, but sales at this stage at least will remain with the SoP website only.