An Army Piper’s Stories

An Army Piper’s Stories Recollections and Reflections Pipe Major Hugh Macpherson on right flank Pipe Major Hugh Macpherson

Contents BEGINNINGS .................................................................................................................................................. 2 REJOINING THE BATTALION .......................................................................................................................... 4 JAMAICA, MON! ............................................................................................................................................ 7 THE CAMELS ARE COMING ........................................................................................................................... 9 PIIPE MAJOR’S COURSE PREPARATION ......................................................................................................... 9 THE PIPE MAJOR’S COURSE ........................................................................................................................ 11 A BRAND-NEW PIPE MAJOR ........................................................................................................................ 14 SCOTS GUARDS CONNECTIONS .................................................................................................................. 16 ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH ............................................................................................................................ 18 CYPRUS ........................................................................................................................................................ 20 EGYPT 1979 ................................................................................................................................................. 21 NANTES, FRANCE ........................................................................................................................................ 24 HELICOPTERS AND CAVALRYMEN ............................................................................................................... 26 VETERANS’ PILGRIMAGES ........................................................................................................................... 28 FOR THE LOVE OF THE BAND ...................................................................................................................... 30 1

BEGINNINGS In 1960 on a Summer Saturday morning on Central Avenue I was a 13- year-old boy selling the local newspaper where my mother was the women’s’ editor. The local reserve army unit, 1 Battalion the North Saskatchewan st Regiment, was marching up the street for some reason. What froze me in my tracks was the sound of their pipe band, in Mackenzie Tartan kilts and gleaming white jackets; approaching in front of the troops. I was caught – hook, line and sinker. I have never been able to escape the total adoration of that thrilling sound since. “Daddy, I have to do it!” I joined their cadet corps at Prince Albert. The battalion’s Pipe Major McDonald from Melfort provided my first kilt of Gordon tartan, It was big enough to fit a six-foot man! My mother cut off a khaki army cadet shirt and fitted it with an elastic waistband, I wore that kilt supported by army issue suspenders, armpits chaffed raw from the top of it and the shirt’s elastic waistband obscured by my first cut down black piper’s belt, for almost a year . After five years in Europe as a World War Two army field engineer my father had come home to become a Canadian National Railway engineer. He knew of a railway policeman in Saskatoon, Edward Peden, who was one of the most famous pipers in Western Canada, He approached Mr. Peden and I started using my railway pass each weekend to attend his piping classes at the University of Saskatchewan. My mother spent countless hours beside me in the front foyer of our little house, carefully directing me first of all to blow one note steadily as she periodically re-tuned the one drone she permitted me, Then it became three drones and lessons in blowing good tone, I was grateful when I was finally allowed to play very slow scales up and down! All the while she insisted that I stare at a reflection in a long mirror to ensure that my shoulders were level and my back was straight. The poor woman! Many years later, at the Black Watch regimental museum on Bleury Street in Montreal, I learned how deep my connection was to that famous regiment. The regimental historian, Mike Cher, told me that near the end of World War II the regiment was engaged in finishing up their work in Holland, Pipe Major H. MacDonald was declared over age for active duty and returned to teach more pipers in Montreal. Lance Corporal S. Keay was appointed ‘acting PM’ but fell out badly with the Regimental Sergeant Major within two months. The acting commanding officer, Major V. E. Traversy, looked around for a pipe major and in the sniper platoon of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment 2

discovered a sergeant who was listed as ‘sergeant piper.’ Transferred, Pipe Major Edward Peden brought the Black Watch regimental Pipes & Drums home to Montreal and then joined the CN Police, One of his more advanced pupils in Saskatoon, Allan Bellhouse, actually taught me where to put my hands on a practice chanter and how to play a scale, Allan became a close friend and I later followed him into the militia - 2 nd Battalion NSR Pipe & Drums at Hugh Cairns VC Armoury in Saskatoon. Pipe Major Hugh Fraser, a very senior Saskatoon Police officer and a veteran piper who had played his pipes on the beach at Dieppe as a Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada from Winnipeg. He finally provided me with a regimental Mackenzie kilt that didn’t hurt when I wore it. Allan Bellhouse, later a lawyer in Winnipeg and pipe major of the Queen’s Own Camerons, followed me into the Regular Army Black Watch a few months after I joined, He stayed for three years. In the spring of 1964, I was at Hugh Cairns Armoury with Allan when I saw a soldier walking across the parade floor. I was amazed; the immaculately pressed dark kilt fitted perfectly. The boots and sporran glistened with spit- shine like nothing I had ever seen. The ‘Fox’ puttees were wrapped to picture- book perfection, And on the left side of his hat was some kind of blood-red feathery thing fluttering. “Who is that Allan?” “That’s the new Regular Support Staff Officer, Captain ‘Dusty’ Rhodes of The Black Watch.” And then, a fateful query – “what is The Black Watch?’ I found out in September. Never in my long life did this pampered middle-class prairie boy undertake anything as grueling as the 19 weeks under Lieutenant Ian Patton and Sergeant Stone at The Regimental Depot (153 Squad) in Camp Gagetown, New Brunswick. I struggled to keep up with my young, incredibly tough, smart Newfoundland and Cape Breton fellow Black Watch aspirants! “Being a piper is no use to us,” Sergeant Stone intoned, “unless you can measure up to the high standard of infantry skill this regiment demands.” I still don’t know how I survived it! Like the U.S. Marines, everyone was a rifleman, Soldier first – tradesman second! Survive it I did somehow, however. Five months later I found myself in “A” Company lines preparing to go on a field exercise - FN C1 rifle in hand, a steel ‘bonnet‘ on my head and no bagpipe anywhere in sight, “Excuse me, Sergeant…I am a piper and should be over with the Pipes & Drums.” “I’m sure Pipey will send for you to audition eventually, son.” I’m sure Sergeant Wannamaker did, however, speak to Pipe Major William Magennis or Drum Major Bill MacKay - because the word came down on the next morning’s rollcall. As I approached the bandroom around the corner of the parade square I had a nasty shock…until that moment I had thought, in my youthful 3

arrogance, that I was not a bad piper, Then their door opened, Pipers began emerging one by one in their Royal Stuart kilts, blowing up their individual instruments to prepare them for the morning band practice. The first one sounded wonderful – and each emerging player, as he struck up, seemed to sound better than the one before! By the time the 15th piper appeared through that door I had to steel myself not to turn and run back to the rifle company with my tail between my legs! Pipe Corporal Donald Carrigan, Lance Corporal James A. Patterson and Lance Corporal Alex J. MacDonald were kind, however, as was the pipe major, The latter allowed this ‘Group Three’ qualified piper a place as a ‘probationary piper’ for six months – that whole first day was an object lesson in humility which no doubt did me a lifetime of good! Samuel Clements, writing as Mark Twain, said “find a job you enjoy doing and you will never have to work a day in your life.” For the first several years he was dead right…but Samuel Clements never met the kind of bureaucrats who took over the Canadian Armed Forces after about 1995! “Maintenance of the aim” and “look after your people” started to give way to a mastery of business administration and linguistics, Instead of leadership, weapons handling and tactical competence, “austerity” more and more became the watchword, It was not so when I joined. The late Lieutenant Colonel Alex Miller told me years later that, while he was a young subaltern in the battalion, he served as the assistant adjutant. During some sort of unit inspection from on high he overheard a staff officer complaining to Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Sellar that this young soldier Macpherson was partly blind…he would have to be put out of the army immediately! ““Leave my band alone,” snarled the Commanding Officer of 1 Battalion, st The Black Watch, “I hired him as a piper – not a sniper.” REJOINING THE BATTALION Colonel Ian S. Fraser, originally of the Black Watch of Canada, was an organizational genius who rivaled Sol Hurok and should have retired as a multi-billionaire. He is the man who created and for so many years ran the wonderful Royal Nova Scotia Tattoo in Halifax. He had designed and led the Canadian Army effort at the World’s Fair in Seattle in 1962, He dreamed, planned, organized and commanded the Canadian Forces Centennial Tattoo on two trains across Canada in 1967, He was simply brilliant! I was an 18-year-old 1 Battalion Black Watch piper on one of those tattoo st trains, My three-year engagement in the army ran out at the end of the tattoo and I, for reasons I still cannot fathom, left the army with my friend Lance Corporal L. Michael Barlett from Burlington, Ontario . 4

Mike and I met on the train heading down to the regimental training depot in New Brunswick and (barely) survived 153 Squad together. Smart and educated, he almost immediately became company clerk in ‘C’ Company. Our time ran out together and he told me of the gold-paved streets in Southern Ontario; Pipe Major Carrigan wouldn’t make me a lance corporal piper - so I left. I went to play with the North American Champion Clan McFarlane Pipe Band in St. Catharines, In that city I was soon employed as a newspaper reporter on the St. Catharines Standard, Pipe Major James Grieg (I couldn’t get away from the mother ship – he had been a corporal piper in the British Black Watch before coming to Canada) told one of the young pipers, Kenneth Eller, that I was too interested in girls - not enough interested in the music, “Find him a wife!” He and his wife Diane, who had studied medical laboratory science in Hamilton, forced her fellow lab student Susan Parnall to date me! Susan somehow saw the true value in this ex-grunt and married him! That was the best thing anyone ever did for me! However, then I became too interested in Susan – I was ‘sent down to the minors’ as pipe major of the Welland Police Pipe Band, We did alright there, though. In 1970 we won the North American Championship in Grade Three at Burlington, Ontario. Then Major Ian Fraser, Deputy Commanding Officer of the battalion which had just become part of The Royal Canadian Regiment instead of The Black Watch, telephoned. “Mr. Macpherson, we thought you’d be back in six months…it is now almost three years! Get your butt back here where you belong!” “Well, Major Fraser, there is the problem of my eyes.” I was born with a condition, finally improved surgically after I retired, which resulted in one eye looking out quite a bit to the left – trying to see around a cataract obstruction in the lens, How I got into the army the first time is a total mystery to me – and a lot of other people as well. However. “Don’t go to the recruiting office in St. Catharines – he’s a Dragoon, Go to see the one in Burlington – he is one of ours and he already has drawn your records from Ottawa.” I walked in and the recruiting sergeant, thumb thrust over his shoulder, said “Oh he’s waiting for you back there.” The RCR officer sitting down the hall in his office stood up, picked up a bible and said, “Raise your right hand!” That was it. 5

I was instructed to wait in the second room down the hall on the left for the doctor – medical examination – and when I walked in they had put the eye chart up in plain sight for me to memorize, I passed! I had first enrolled into the army in 1964 as a piper ‘tradesman.’ In fact I was the last Canadian piper who went into that old trade. By the time I re- enrolled we were all infantrymen because the officers of the music trade said that the bagpipe wasn’t a musical instrument! At Camp Gagetown officialdom firmly told me that I didn’t qualify to go back to the battalion – I would need to begin all over again with basic training because Ottawa said that my piper trade was no longer acceptable. Back in 1966 the battalion had been having a quiet, boring summer, We pipers and drummers were told that our anti-tank platoon was coming over to the bandroom one Friday to show us how their 106 recoilless rifles, mounted on jeeps, performed. At the end of that training day Lieutenant Scotty Phillips, their platoon commander, was ‘inveigled’ by our commanding officer into signing our official documents as ‘qualified Group Two Anti-tank Infantry tradesmen.’ “Look”, said Major Fraser, ““Piper Macpherson was a fully-qualified infantry tradesman – it is here right in his documents.” Higher office stamped my papers and went away in a huff! By 1973 Colonel Fraser was the Commanding Officer of the battalion. We were tasked to Cyprus on UN duty, Half the band had to stay back in support of the Canadian Army Battle School – half had to go on the mission with the battalion. I hoped to be picked for the mission. Friday morning in those days was ‘Commanding Officer’s Parade.’ Normally he picked one rifle company and the rest were inspected by their majors as the Pipes & Drums entertained from the rear of the parade. On that Friday he came onto the saluting dais and intoned “This morning I will inspect the Pipes & Drums – company commanders carry on.” There was certainly a big flurry of worry back in the rear of the battalion! He inspected across the front rank and came back to my position – left flank second rank, He paused to stare into my eyes. I felt him pressing something into my clenched right fist, Whatever it was, I put it into my combat jacket pocket and waited, The parade finished, We played ‘The Black Bear’, ‘Coller Herrin’ and ‘Saint Catharines March’ as the soldiers marched off the square to duty . When we fell out at the bandroom I sneaked a peek – E, OG, PAR, LMTD, etc. with a green pencil line and an arrow which indicated “down to here.” We went for coffee. I did it – a piper’s memory is pretty good! When we went back the drum major formed us up to march to the medics for “deployment medicals.” Again, I passed! 6

While in Cyprus Colonel Fraser found out that the British Army at Akrotiri had an ophthalmologist down from England for a couple of weeks, He sent me up to see that eye specialist, who later wrote a letter back to our unit saying that I could read music fine but that I ought to be kept away from weapons as much as possible - for fear that I would hurt someone! That letter was on my file until the very end of my career. JAMAICA, MON! I rejoined 2 nd Battalion The Royal Canadian Regiment in 1970 as soon as they finished dealing with the ‘FLQ Crisis at Quebec City, Although I had been sworn in again before they deployed, it was decided that after being a civilian for so long I might be a ‘danger in traffic’ among them while they were on a serious mission. When they returned to barracks at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown and sent for me, I reported, I found that they were the same men and it was the same music, the same location and the familiar day-to-day work that I remembered so fondly. All that had really changed was the cap badge and the tartan. It took a while for ‘the system’ to figure out how to give the necessary equipment, weapon and clothing to a soldier who their computers insisted had never left; Private Macpherson wandered about the battalion for quite a while like ‘little Lord Fauntleroy’ in a blue blazer, grey flannels and a regimental tie (the Black Watch tie the first morning caused an uncomfortable stir and I was handed an RCR one almost instantly.) On the first morning’s band practice I was made to feel totally welcome back. As always, they ‘fell out’ with their instruments and took up their positions before the bandroom in St. Andrew’s Barracks ‘C’ Lines. Bagpipe in hand I waited by the door for orders. “Well, are you coming along or not?” Only then did I notice that the position in the second rank immediately behind the pipe sergeant had been left vacant for me, just like before, by the pipers, I can still feel the intense sense of ‘homecoming’ that brought to me as though it happened yesterday! In February I went home after work to tell my wife Susan the news – we were going to Jamaica for a month! She and I quickly realized that there was now another ‘we’ in our life – the regiment. Coming from the ‘Golden Triangle’ of Southern Ontario, Susan didn’t know very much about awful winters. When the unit departed there was no snow at all around Fredericton. As soon as we left, however, there was plenty! What an awful time all our poor wives had coping with it while we sweated and suffered in the tropical heat. 7

In our tented camp at Foley Point in Jamaica the Pipes & Drums lived in our big tent directly across from the battalion’s ‘duty free’ stores, Our unit medics lived in a smaller tent behind the booze and cigarettes. While the rifle companies underwent jungle training with members of one of the regiment’s sister units, the Jamaica Defence Force, we pipers and drummers spent our time travelling all over the country playing for the locals. We once tuned up at the airfield, loaded into a Canadian Forces Buffalo ‘STAL’ aircraft’ - ‘short take-off and landing, not ‘stall’ – and landed for a performance on the soccer field of a village called Mooretown, high in the towering Blue Mountains, The little airplane roared onto their football field, spun around at the end and dropped the rear ramp. We emerged down that ramp playing ‘Scotland the Brave’ wearing white jackets and spats, hair sporrans and glengarries - to perform a forty-five minute show before falling out for beer and sandwiches, Then, forming up beside the picnic tables, we played ‘The Black Bear’ back up our ramp before roaring off back to Montego Bay Airport and the Foley Point encampment. There is a venomous orange and blue creature in the Caribbean, the Santampi, known to the locals as a ‘forty-legger.’ It’s scorpion-like stinger dispenses poison closely related to that of a diamond-backed rattlesnake – and equally unpleasant, We were carefully instructed to shake out our combat boots and sleeping bags each time before using them. As we slept one night one of them must have crawled into my hair, from which I brushed it in my sleep, I wasn’t asleep long after that – he stung me right between my eyes, It hurt, but that wasn’t the worst of it! I tried to make it out of the tent without wakening any of the snoring band members so that I could cross the ‘street’ to see the medics. Caribbean nights can be quite dark but that made no difference by the time I fumbled my way outside – my face was puffing up and my eyes were both swollen tightly shut. Clumsy by nature at the best of times, I hit a tent rope, severely twisting my ankle and landing in the mud of the track. By the time I recovered my feet, hopped across and squelched muddily through the ‘duty free’, I had wakened half the unit with panicked shouts of “medic, medic.” I was cleaned up, needled with an antidote and helped back to my bed, My colleagues told me I looked even worse than usual - like a hideous, wounded ‘elephant man!’ Poor Pipe Major Gilmour was forced to muddle through for about three days without his best-looking piper. We finally returned to New Brunswick about a month later and I discovered that Susan was pregnant with Iain Donald, our first child. Iain is now a business communications professor in Edmonton. 8

THE CAMELS ARE COMING I have always tried to find a mount to ride at whatever location I found myself. This has resulted in mounted tours in, among other places, the Greek Peloponnesus, the Canadian Rocky Mountains, The Cayman Islands, Virginia, Egyptian Giza at the pyramids, Arizona and Nicosia, Cyprus. I was part of the half-band posted on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Nicosia, Cyprus in 1973 as a corporal piper with 2 Battalion The nd Royal Canadian Regiment Pipes & Drums, In that city, inside the ancient town wall, a camel and his owner had migrated from the Middle East. They were earning their fodder providing a photo-op for the apparently bullet-proof British tourists who abounded. Once I was safely (I thought) aboard the enormous beast one of my fellow pipers fetched my pipes and decided that the photograph really ought to include the old Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders 6/8 march ‘The Camels Are Coming’ The camel was either a piping judge or a MacDonald! A wild cross-town camel gallop immediately ensued, with the offending bagpipe protected on high with one hand while the other hand attempted to ward off his determined attempts, head reversed, to bite off a kilted kneecap, We almost bowled over an astonished Cypriot policeman directing lunch-hour traffic in Metaxas Square, black-and-white leather gauntlets frantically waving as the camel thundered over him. The terrifying adventure ended finally when the other side of the town wall finally brought my steed to a shuddering, gasping halt beneath a very shaken young soldier, A taxi containing an extremely angry Arab gentleman shouting “camel thief, stop, stop”, an Austin Mini containing pipers also shouting “camel thief, stop, stop”, and a police car with blazing sirens containing two not-very- happy policemen all roared to a screeching stop surrounding the four-legged brute with the two-legged one astride. Captain (later Colonel) Geoff Hutton, the battalion’s adjutant and the boss of the Pipes & Drums, rescued me from languishing in a fetid Mediterranean bastille. Drum Major Jack Wade shook his head in apparent despair. The people of Asia and the Middle East have proven over and over again through the centuries that they love the sound of bagpipes; apparently, however, their camels do not! PIIPE MAJOR’S COURSE PREPARATION I served another three years as an infantry piper in the battalion, receiving wonderful tuition from the regimental non-commissioned officer pipers and a combat leaders/infantry section commander’s course. Then I was sent to United Nations duty in Cyprus for six winter months. 9

I occasionally took my turn, FN rifle in hand, guarding the gate at Blue Beret Camp. But mostly I practiced twelve piobaireachds and twelve marches, strathspeys, reels, hornpipes and jigs beneath the palm trees in preparation for the mandatory ‘audition’ in front of the famous Captain John A. MacLellan MBE at the British Army School of Piping high atop Edinburgh Castle. As our UN tour neared completion, I was playing at the battalion Officers’ Mess one night when Padre Roy White left the table to approach me. “How close are you, Corporal Macpherson, to your father-in-law in St. Catharines?” Oh, oh…this is not good! Susan and our two children were there while I completed the mission. Her father passed away suddenly, and I needed to fly home. “Get ready now” said our adjutant, Captain Geoff Hutton. “Don’t worry about your weapon and kit, I’ll take care of it” said Corporal (later Pipe Major) Doug Moulton, “Just get over there to your wife!” Amazingly, the battalion had me on a Hercules aircraft and through Germany to Trenton almost instantly – I missed the funeral half-way around the planet by only a couple of hours. Then two days later I needed to fly back through Germany to London and up to Edinburgh to face, jet-lagged, a very intimidating Piobaireachd Society panel consisting of Lieutenant Colonel David Murray, John MacFadyen and the redoubtable piper and physicist-professor Seamus MacNeill. Wonderfully, those gentlemen permitted me to attend the next Pipe Major’s Course. Somehow, I returned to Canadian Forces Europe in Lahr, Germany. There, seeking airlift back to the unit in Nicosia, I was met by Pipe Major John Huggan – a former Canadian Black Watch then 2 Battalion Canadian Guards nd 10

piper. He told me not to return to Cyprus. Handing me a leave pass he got me on the next flight back to Trenton and thence back to my family. I never saw my rifle and steel helmet again! Poor Doug Moulton must have manhandled two complete soldier kits all the way back to New Brunswick. After the battalion’s leave finished and we returned to garrison duty at Camp Gagetown I spent a few months continuing my musical training with our boss, Pipe Major William J. Gilmour. Several times he sent me up to compete in the open solo events at various highland games across Ontario…he said it was to gain musical insight from some of the judges as well as to increase my level of confidence in my own music. Once I encountered the famous John Wilson on the bench. “Where did you learn to play that tune like that?” he said, “My pipe major, Sir.” “Well, if it’s no’ in the book” he said, “it’s wrong - and if it is in a book then the book’s wrong!” Representing the province of New Brunswick, I attended the once-only ‘Interprovincial Professional Piping Contest’ at Ottawa judged by Captain John A. MacLellan MBE and Edinburgh Police Pipe Major Iain MacLeod. Because of the intensive training and course preparation I had just undergone I had the most wildly successful day of my entire piping competition career. I left in August bound for Edinburgh to find a home for us to live in for the next year. Pipe Major Gilmour drove me to the airport in Fredericton. His last piece of ‘coursemanship’ advice was “Hughie, don’t try to drink with those men…you can’t!” He was, as always, perfectly correct, I never could – still can’t! Affordable rental housing in a city full of universities is difficult to find. In desperation I finally told Captain MacLellan that Susan was arriving with no home in which to put Iain and Victoria…he picked up his phone and we had British Army housing at 39 Redhall Drive within the hour. THE PIPE MAJOR’S COURSE Only five Canadians have ever been permitted to attend the full pipe major course. William J. Gilmour, Archie M. Cairns, William Stirling, Donald M. Carrigan and Hugh 11

Macpherson, Sadly, only the first and last of us remain alive today. The course of 1974 / 1975 ‘fell in’ atop Edinburgh Castle outside the school, which was located upstairs above the Royal Scots regimental museum. “…Shun!” yelled Scots Guards Pipe Major Arthur Gelvin to the nine soldiers, He was at the school as an extra piping instructor while he awaited his impending retirement. As one man, A British Black Watch piper, two Queen’s Own Highlanders, two Royal Irish Rangers, one Irish Guardsman and two Ghurkhas crashed shiny hob-nailed brogues to attention, Sadly, one Royal Canadian Regiment soldier was not aware that the British Army didn’t use the cautionary “Atten…” as we do. Great start! “Will you be joining us this morning, Corporal?” I got with the programme for the second attempt. Beyond a doubt the next year was the most wonderful of my life! British Army Senior Pipe Major Jock Allen (Warrant Officer 1 Class), Queen’s Own st Highlanders, who was later a Major and himself Director of Army Bagpipe Music, was a great teacher and a perfect example of how to be a pipe major. While a Scots Guards sergeant piper, he accepted the appointment as the first Queen’s Own Highlanders pipe major when the government squished the Seaforth and Cameron Highlanders together in February 1961. There was such angry commotion in the new unit in Redford Barracks, Edinburgh that an ‘outsider’ was needed to bring order to the chaos in the new pipe band. Captain John A. MacLellan MBE was Director of Army Bagpipe Music. He was a graduate of Willie Ross’ 1949 Army Class. At 19 years of age he became a wartime pipe major of 9th Camerons then, after WWII of 1 Seaforths - where st he later became the regimental sergeant major, In 1959, upon the retirement of the great Pipe Major Willie Ross MBE, John MacLellan was appointed by the Piobaireachd Society to head the Army School of Piping. He was, in my opinion, like his son Colin today, not only a superb piper, but the most effective teacher I ever encountered. He also had a wonderful sense of humour. He and Jock Allen decided that it would be interesting to hear what a Canadian prairie boy accent would do with canntaireachd – the ‘mouth-music’ once used to teach piobaireachd. I was assigned to learn the Nether Lorn canntaireachd - and then to teach it to my colleagues on the course. I’m sure that the three young highlanders and the teachers, some of whom are still of this world today, continue to suffer nightmares from that startling ‘linguistic experience!’ 12

Those three highlanders (John Mair of the Black Watch was, like Captain MacLellan, actually from the Kingdom of Fife) invited me to join them each Wednesday at lunchtime, They went down the Royal Mile and into a little close overlooking Princes Street gardens, There we had haggis, peas and chips in a tiny cafe – and two of them put Heinz ketchup on their haggis! In front of the castle lies the Esplanade – officially part of Nova Scotia - the parade square where the famous Edinburgh Tattoo takes place. The soldiers use it as a parking lot, Each week Susan bussed our children, three-year-old Iain Donald and baby Victoria Jean, downtown shopping then walked up the hill to meet me after work at the car in front of what Iain called “daddy’s cackle!” The last two weeks of the course was a whirlwind; three-hour musical theory and history examinations, writing out whole marches, strathspeys, reels and piobaireachds, No short-cuts were permitted – each crunluath had to be painstakingly produced. 2 Royal Irish Rangers Corporal (later Pipe Major) Michael Moore showed nd us a great new product from “America” which his pal had sent to him, His little white bottle contained a brush for painting over note mistakes…one needed only to wait a moment for it to dry, replace the music ledger lines and correct the notes! Pipe Major Allen permitted him to come back into the school that night to re-write when it was discovered that the ‘dried’ white ink slowly ate the new lines and notes, leaving great empty chunks in Mick’s neat work. Captain MacLellan sent for me after the same Piobaireachd Society panel who allowed me onto the course finished listening to endless hours of my end- course playing. “Corporal, here is an army travel warrant for the train, Go through to Glasgow to Seamus MacNeill at the College of Piping and try for your civilian qualifications to go with the army pipe major certificate.” The great professor had just heard me play everything I know…but when I reported to him in Ortega Street the next day, instead of shaking hands and handing me the requested documents, he proved himself a masochist by having me repeat the entire procedure before him…all day again! I can claim to be the only piper in the world ever personally appointed a pipe major by Captain John A. MacLellan – and in front of my wife Susan, as well! At the course dinner in the Royal Military Police Corporals’ Mess across from the school we were presented our certificates before our wives or sweethearts. I was honoured to receive a silver goblet engraved with my name and regiment as well as “Top Candidate 1975.” The director had informed Ottawa of that fact and had received yellow Canadian pipe major appointment badges with a request that they be presented to me. 13

That precipitated a sleepless night for Susan - carefully removing corporal stripes, measuring and sewing the new badges to my uniform. A BRAND-NEW PIPE MAJOR At the Castle I received orders from my career manager in Ottawa. I was not to go anywhere near my old battalion in New Brunswick; I was to report to him personally at his office on Laurier Avenue in Ottawa. “You aren’t going back to 2 RCR. There are two Air Force base commanders who are anxious to have volunteer pipe bands – Cold Lake, Alberta and Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, Pick one right now.” To this day I want nothing to do with cold or any place that has “cold” in its name! I asked for a map and determined that Portage seemed relatively close to a centre of civilization – Winnipeg, I grew up out on the prairie and know all about winters but it seemed that I had no choice, since I couldn’t go ‘home’ to my own unit. “But, oh my gosh, the air force kilts are so awfully blue…oh well, they match my eyes,” I thought. “The regiment will never forgive me; I hope someday I’ll go back as one of their two pipe majors.” That only took a little over thirteen years. I had a few strange encounters with career managers during my career; for some reason musicians, including pipe majors and drumming instructors, were ‘managed’ by a Chief Warrant Officer from either the physical training and recreational training instructor or cook trades. I left Portage la Prairie for the second time because I was ‘encouraged’ to attend one year of French language training . After what seemed an eternity in St. Jean, Quebec away from my music and my family, I received notice that I was posted to Greenwood, Nova Scotia – to a wonderful little pipe band in the Annapolis Valley. I went with my wife Susan on a ‘house-hunting trip’. We bought our first house there. Returning to our hotel room we opened a nice bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon to celebrate . The hotel room phone rang, “This is the career manager – things have changed. Drive straight from there to CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick for another week of your house hunting. We’re sending you back to 2 RCR.” “OK, Sir…but you just bought a house!” “Oh, are the papers signed yet?” “We just finished half-an-hour ago.” A long, long thoughtful pause. “Oh well, stay there then – we’ll figure something else out!” However, after the pipe major’s course it wasn’t always career managers that created excitement for me . 14

My arrival at Canadian Forces Base Portage la Prairie right after the course at Edinburgh Castle in June 1975 didn’t go awfully well, Brand new pipe major badges on my arms, kilted and very shiny, I reported to the acting base chief warrant officer. He ordered me to “get rid of that ridiculous get-up…your job will be filing my papers, inspecting the quarters for me and answering my telephone.” “No it will not, Master Warrant Officer…where is the CO’s office?” Fortunately, the base personnel officer, Captain Russel Smye (RCR), happened to be walking by in the hall, Overhearing a fellow member of the regiment dropping his infantry self in big trouble in a very different culture from ours, he came to the rescue and took me to the Base Commander, Colonel Reginald Litt. “I came to produce a band for you, Sir…not to file some fellow’s papers. I’m going back to the battalion.” The Colonel really did want to have a pipe band. He gave me six months to produce one and sent me to report to Captain James Skinner, an avid piper, a flying instructor and an ex-naval aviator who had flown off our aircraft carrier HMCS Bonaventure. I learned so much about leadership and small-unit management from Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) Skinner over the next two years that it could never be repaid, Among other things he had been a student of Pipe Major Archie Cairns and is very knowledgeable about piobaireachd. Almost half a century later I still count him among my greatest friends, as well as a trusted reference when I study new ceol mor. We made a band in six months, too! Four tunes! We could play ‘Robin Adair’, Mairie’s Wedding, Scots Wa’ Hae’ and ‘Amazing Grace’. Day and night, I taught basic piping and drumming while he taught pipers, Pipe Major Alex Cupples from the Brandon artillery militia band was very supportive. My oldest friend and piping colleague Allan Bellhouse, now a successful lawyer in Winnipeg, plus some of Allan’s friends, helped us tirelessly. 189 days after the awful ‘welcome’ altercation we paraded CFB Portage la Prairie Pipes & Drums (playing all four of our tunes) for a successful Air Force pilot graduation parade. Colonel Litt commented at one point that it seemed that every person on the station had a practice chanter or drumsticks protruding from their back pocket that year! I never did file any other man’s papers after that! Eighteen months later we learned that Pipe Major John Huggan was taking his retirement in Lahr, West Germany and ‘Ottawa’ had selected me to succeed him as pipe major of Canadian Forces Europe Pipes & Drums. 15

Astonished and elated, I handed over to an old Canadian Guards piper, Pipe Major Hughie Briand, Susan and I headed off for the Black Forest for the greatest five-year adventure of our lives. SCOTS GUARDS CONNECTIONS Canadian pipers of my generation were almost all the sons of WWII fighting soldiers. Many of our fathers, if not army pipers themselves, had heard the music of their pipes amongst them through five hard years of war and loved them and their music. For us Scots Guards Volume One music book was the Bible – old and new testaments both! I was no different out in Saskatchewan, In awe of the pictures and the pipe majors’ names, I tried to work my way painstakingly, page by wonderful page, through the ‘tunes of glory.’ Back then I never dreamed of one day being an army piper. In the summer of 1965 2 Battalion Scots Guards came for summer nd training with our brigade in Camp Gagetown. Of course, the two commanding officers decided that their two bands would do the ceremony of ‘Beating the Retreat’ together. In came The Guards from the bushes. Showmanship is a necessary part of military pipe band life – the Scots Guards have centuries of history behind them to have mastered how to create an effect! Three huge lorries pulled up in front of our bandroom. Pipe Major Robert Kilgour had arranged for his 19 pipers, glengarries perfectly tilted and combat clothing immaculate, to emerge from under the tarpaulins – they leaped to the ground and wordlessly moved into their band positions perfectly at ‘attention.’ Knowing what I now know I’m sure they had stopped along a country lane to tune up before emerging in front of us. Their sound was perfect! So was the ‘Retreat.’ Then both bands were sent to the famous Antigonish Highland Games to compete. We were housed at a ‘nunnery’ – The sisters of Saint Martha. Our Pipe Major William Magennis, an Irishman who had served in the wartime British Commandoes, was wearing his campaign ribbons on his uniform when he spoke to the young men of both bands about regimental honour and their behavior with the young nuns. The evening was a social triumph! Mother Superior hosted the two bands’ executives at dinner, The young sisters informed the rest of us that they had been practicing making wine – the stuff was really very good, and the sisters loved our bagpipe hymns! There were no untoward incidents. 16

1st Battalion The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada Pipes & Drums outdid 2nd Battalion Scots Guards Pipes & Drums the next day by some long-forgotten fraction of a point. Many years later I was on the pipe majors’ course in Edinburgh. Bob Kilgour was by then retired and working as some kind of Bank of Scotland executive, He was wonderful to me throughout my year there. After I joined the army my family moved to Saskatoon from Prince Albert. I went to see them on leave to discover that the famous Pipe Major Angus MacDonald and his 1st Battalion Scots Guards Pipes & Drums, on tour across North America, were to play while I was there. My father hosted the pipe major and several of his pipers at his home after the show. Even after Antigonish I was still in awe – and meeting and hearing Angus play in my parents’ spacious livingroom caused another ‘hang my pipes above the fireplace’ moment. Many years later I was in Edinburgh on Canadian Forces Europe business. Up at the Castle Angus volunteered to drive me to Turnhouse Airport for my return to Germany. I had just heard a piper playing an unfamiliar march – The Crisis – and had been able to retain only the first part in my memory. Up in the Castle, I asked Angus about the music for the rest of the tune, As the lorry passed along Princes Street, Scots Guards badges painted on the doors and windows wide open, he and I loudly sang the other parts of the tune over and over until I had them internalized – hundreds of tourists along the way must have been highly entertained! I still love that tune. Pipe Major (Later Lieutenant Colonel) Linden (Dixie) Ingram, Scots Guards, was another guardsman who strongly influenced me. In 1978, while I was with Canadian Forces Europe, he was the pipe major of 2 Battalion Scots Guards away to the north of us, He sent for Royal Scots nd Pipe Major Paddy Moorecroft and me as judges for a regimental piping and bugling contest. I arrived at the Guards’ camp mid-afternoon after a long autobahn drive in my Canadian Forces staff car. At their gate a young guardsman in his brown beret met me and asked me to slide over “I will drive you to the Sergeants’ Mess, Sir…the sergeant major is waiting for you.” I protested that I needed to get into my room first to unpack my kit and prepare it for the morning. This was the Guards…”it will all be taken care of, Sir!” I entered their Mess and enjoyed some pleasant conversation and a drink. Time slipped by. Pipe Major Ingram and his wife entered the Mess and sat down at a table. I went over to speak to him. “I don’t speak to pipe majors without a tie in the Mess after 1800hrs!” 17

Horrified, I glanced at my watch…1809hrs…and rushed next door to the sergeants’ quarters. There I found my room with all my kit laid out or hung up and perfectly prepared, Wow: this really is the Scots Guards! I re-entered the Mess. Dixie stood up and welcomed me with open arms - just as though he had not seen me only minutes before, Paddy and I were treated to a lovely dinner and evening. For the rest of my career I paid very close attention to my mode of dress in every situation…I should already have learned that lesson from observing Pipe Majors Gilmour, Cairns, Carrigan and Stirling, I guess! ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH Our lungs work by extracting oxygen from the air we breathe in then expelling the carbon dioxide residue. Long-time professional pipers’ lungs develop the ability to extract as much of the oxygen as rapidly as possible before the piper forcefully blows it out again into the reeds. In 1995 our band was sent from Ottawa to Colorado – through Denver then 75 miles up a twisted mountain road into the mountains 7522 feet above sea level to the highland games at Estes Park. Here Royal Canadian Air Force airmen join with their United States Air Force colleagues at NORAD inside a mountain, where they listen for Russian invaders. We were tasked to be one of two ‘duty bands’ at the highland games. In addition to very little oxygen for pipers the air up there seems to contain very little of the moisture vital for bagpipe functioning. I saw all my stalwarts into their quarters alongside pipers and drummers of 2 Battalion Scots Guards and went down to meet the Guards’ Pipes & Drums nd executive – the late Pipe Major Gordon Webster, who was, during his career, pipe major of both Scots Guards battalions and later became the Sovereign’s Piper - one of two Warrant Officer First Class pipe majors serving at any one time in the British Army. With him was Drum Major (later Captain and adjutant of the Canadian Army Reserve Ceremonial Guard in Ottawa) David Rennie. Gordon Webster later married well-known Canadian piper Lezlie Paterson from Brockville, Ontario. When he retired, they moved to the United States where they together created and operated the New Hampshire School of Scottish Arts. While he was at Buckingham Palace, I spent a day with Gordon in London. In the piper’s room, atop a tall locker full of his ceremonial clothing, lay a silver and ivory mounted bagpipe. It was Queen Elizabeth’s bagpipe – her uncle Edward VIII left it with the then sovereign’s piper Forsyth when the king abdicated with American divorce é Wallace Simpson in 1936. That resulted in Queen Elizabeth’s father George VI, to his dismay, ascending the throne. 18

Gordon told me that Her Majesty regularly argues with her pipers that they should play her pipes – but the middle drone will not hold tuning so they refuse, He offered countless times to take it to Glasgow to have the drone bored out to make it steady; she won’t hear of it! So, there it probably still lies. In Estes Park I walked into his room to find him stripping the four reeds from his pipes and floating them in water in his sink! “I’ve just been told I need to play the solo of Amazing Grace tomorrow” he said in answer to my shocked look, “and in this thin air I don’t want to have all my drones stop in front of God and everybody!” It worked too…his pipes may have sounded a bit rough the next day, but his drones kept going long enough for the rest of us to join him and drown him out! The following morning saw our two bands told to parade through the town, We all quickly learned a huge respect for the pipers who live and play bagpipes up there. After playing one time through each little two-part march all of us were dizzy – there were spots floating before our eyes. After each short attempt to play as we went through the town there was a great deal of wheezing and gasping! At the other end of the main street we fell out - into the nearest pub to re- hydrate. Surrounded by Guardsmen and my own pipers and drummers, I was leaning my dress uniform-clad left elbow on the bar talking with Drum Major Rennie in his red coat, A loud clunk beside my arm made me glance down – and jump away letting out a startled yelp. Right there, scant inches from my heart, was a muscular, naked and very hairy arm - with a huge hand clasping a most dangerous-looking 13-inch hand-crafted blade. That poor, wildly bearded man; in seconds he was on the floor in his sheepskin vest, cowboy boots, Macleod of Lewis kilt, numerous antique pistols and a huge sword. Three Scots Guards pipers held him pinned, their fists drawn back menacingly! How they got rid of their glasses of beer and moved across that room so fast in those doublets and full plaids is still a mystery to me! “I’m sorry”, he gasped, “I just wanted to compare dirks with the pipe major!” 19

CYPRUS Canadian Forces Europe Pipes & Drums arrived, as usual in a noisy Hercules aircraft, at Nicosia Airport late in the evening, Bussed to the Canadian United Nations camp in behind the Ledra Palace Hotel we fumbled our kit into the accommodations provided and sought out a late-night beer and a snack – not always so easy to find in the dark of night in the middle of the eastern Mediterranean Sea and where everyone you meet is armed to the teeth! The next morning Pipe Sergeant (Lieutenant Colonel Doctor) Fraser and I went across to reconnoitre the place near the old Officers’ Mess building where we had been told we would ‘Beat the Retreat’ that evening. We walked around behind the once-beautiful, bullet-pocked hotel – formerly known as “the jewel of the Mediterranean” – and through a gateway I remembered from the old days (when I carried a rifle instead of a clipboard and a pen) beside that lovely old mansion. I heard George muttering under his breath. Then I noticed a Medical Corps captain and two lieutenants were just coming out of the Mess door and turning towards us in the street. I saw George stiffen to ‘attention’, his sergeant rank plainly visible on his shirt, Just as the pipe sergeant was about to deliver a smart ‘eyes right’ to accompany my salute the three officers as one raised their arms in salutes - and greeted “Doctor Fraser, Sir.” The poor colonel / sergeant piper / piper / officer / doctor / psychiatrist gratefully returned their salute. After the evening Retreat Ceremony, where I had noticed three British Argyll & Sutherland Highlander officers and a sergeant major standing among the crowd, we found out that our departure for Egypt was to be delayed again. Their Pipe Major M. MacGillivray had just been commissioned in the regiment, which was then stationed on ‘The Island of Love’ at Dekilia. His ‘welcome to the Officers’ Mess’ party was that evening – their Pipes & Drums was away at the Tattoo in Edinburgh and they needed two pipers and our highland dancers “or their party would be a dismal failure.” That evening I was presented with a ‘thank you’ gift - a lovely old regimental sgian dubh taken from their museum. It is a treasured gift that I still wear today. I was told it had been with General Wolseley’s army in 1884 fighting the Mahdists in the Sudan. Sergeant Ronald Lawrenson, The Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, informed me 45 years later that it was a Cameron Highlanders ceremonial weapon – not a weapon of The Argylls at all! We who had been asked out to labour in support of a foreign power got to bed very, very late that night – the Argylls throw a great party! Pipe Sergeant Fraser and the pipers and drummers had a great night back in Nicosia – the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery throws a great party, too! 20

I went alone the next evening to play at a Canadian Officers’ Mess Dinner, Returning to my bed, I stopped quietly into the gymnasium-type structure where the pipers and drummers were barracked to see that they were alright. I approached quietly so as not to awaken my sleeping beauties and was arrested by a picture which I will never forget! Seated cross-legged at the end of a barracks bed was my sergeant piper in a silk nightgown, At the foot of the bed, also cross-legged on the floor, were my stalwarts – each with a small plastic cup in their hands, As I watched spellbound, George Fraser, always a brilliant raconteur, was holding forth on some topic or other – while dispensing generous measures into their waiting cups from a huge bottle of black rum he maintained in his lap! I crept away to my shower and my bed, fearful of disrupting such a million- dollar scene of true leadership! EGYPT 1979 We departed Nicosia only three days late, headed for El Gala Camp at Ismailia, Egypt – maintaining the original objective (although by a slightly circuitous route through Cyprus.) We stepped from the Hercules and were bundled precipitously, luggage and all, straight to the edge of the parade square. The final parade rehearsals were under way for their medal’s ceremony. Our personal baggage and instrument cases were abandoned near us in the sand. We were shuffled straight into our band position in their formation – never mind tune-up, just play now, That rehearsal lasted for hours! The parade the next day, however, was a huge success. Corporal Paul Capka suggested that using a large parade rehearsal to blow the pipes down and tune them was a great idea – saves the pipers a lot of work in the heat! After the awful struggle we had with instrument sound on that square all afternoon I suggested that I didn’t necessarily agree with him. Pipe Corporal Paul Francis Capka was a one-of-a-kind infantry piper – intelligent, totally dedicated and always ready to do the job. At El Gala Camp, our Canadian United Nations encampment situated in the centre of a doughnut-shaped Egyptian Eighth Army establishment, there was a low building near the eastern edge – some kind of stores, I imagine, On one end of the roof there had been set up a large screen for the soldiers to watch movies when they could get them, Some of the soldiers who were off duty and most of the band were sitting in the shade at the far end of the building enjoying some cold refreshments, I decided to clamber onto the low stage/roof to give them a few tunes…and for some unknown reason my hands decided to finish off with a version of ‘Hava Nagila’ - a popular Bar Mitzvah ditty. Whatever demon took possession of my fingers at that moment I have no idea, but I do 21

know that Pipe Sergeant Fraser and Pipe Corporal Capka both slammed me with an unceremonious tackle off that roof at the same moment! “Have you any idea how many Egyptian snipers were over there lining up on you just now…?” Yikes! I had noticed that in their conversations the pipers and drummers often made reference to their newest ‘Pipey’ as “old blue-eyes.” With visions of the incredible musical ability of Frank Sinatra dancing in my head I finally asked Paul about the reference. My ego deflated instantly back to normalcy when he informed me that the troops had made note of my vision problem - “one blew east and one blew west.” By the second or third day both the people and our instruments were becoming adjusted to the oppressive heat of a Mediterranean spring, Huge humidity change from Southern Germany through Cyprus and into the desert did not, however, make the bagpipes very happy. I was extremely lucky to have some pipers with us who had experienced desert atmospheres with their pipes in the past and were able to show us all how to keep the instruments going. We also had received some instruction from the British Army pipers of our unofficial ‘partnership unit’ in Germany – Pipe Major (later RSM) Jock Allen and Drum Major (later The Gordon Highlanders - then WO I Senior Drum Major) Bert Tompkins, The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards – the pipe band of ‘Amazing Grace’ fame. Four of our piper and drummer volunteers were often detached to that wonderful unit for periods of training while an equivalent number of their soldiers replaced them in our ranks, wearing our Canadian uniforms and eating our great Canadian Army food. That morning after breakfast we all bustled about preparing to join our anxiously waiting Trenton Hercules Air Force crew for the journey back to the Black Forest and real life. Then came the inevitable summons – another Major General wishing a word with me – as always, when convenient, Off I went. Expecting kudos, I was startled to find a Swedish colonel with the Canadian general. Apparently, to the dismay of our aircraft commander, we had at last night’s dinner been promised for the Swedish battalion’s medals parade in the very centre of the Sinai Desert! It is very hot out there! We settled into the white UN-marked Canadian Buffalo aircraft (a replacement for the one shot down with terrible loss of Canadian lives in 1974) and were ferried over no-man’s-land for hours. We arrived beside a huge tent containing a few Swedish-speaking soldiers, One gestured us out across the dunes until we encountered a desert track stretching from horizon to sandy horizon, The junior officer signaled us into a position facing one side of the track…there we waited, bemused and 22

occasionally blowing a tune through the pipes to keep them alive - and us amused . Suddenly two Swedish soldiers appear over the dune to our front bearing what looked like a portable reviewing stand. It was. They thumped it down straight across the desert track from us, then nodded politely and disappeared again over their sand dune, We played a tune for the little structure, Then a clutch of Swedish officers in jackets and women in colourful sun dresses and umbrellas (?) shimmered over the same dune and gathered behind the reviewing stand followed by a Lieutenant General from Indonesia with a staff of very many. My bass drummer spoke up finally – “Pipey, look off to your right.” Over another horizon appeared a battalion of enormous Swedish soldiers marching through the heat shimmer towards us along the track. The bass drummer, squinting, picked up their cadence quietly, the drum major said ‘’quick march”, the General and his enormous staff saluted and we played as the soldiers passed between us and the colourful umbrellas to disappear over yet another horizon to our left. The sun umbrellas decamped northwards. The reviewing stand was carted away. Canadian Forces Europe Pipes & Drums was abandoned, sweating, with our desert track. We followed the high-heel footprints back across the sand to the tent to consume a warm Swedish beer and a cold Swedish sausage. Then we went to awaken the pilot of the Buffalo aircraft to take us back. In El Gala a message received from back in Canada told us that was enough of that – “Pipe Major, you get back in that Herc and you get your…take your people back to duty!” Ottawa wasn’t happy. We got a nice letter a while later though - from Indonesian Major General Rais Abin. 23

NANTES, FRANCE 4 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Germany was on a NATO exercise up th north in Germany – with it were most of our pipers and drummers, including their brigade commander Brigadier General John de Chastelain. He was a Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry officer who began his soldiering as a Calgary Highlanders piper, He was a very competent piper. Finally retired after being Chief of the Defence Staff, Canada’s ambassador to the United States and again Chief of the Defence Staff, as well as numerous other jobs, he is still a good friend. Major Scotty Phillips was a rebadged Black Watch officer of the Royal Canadian Regiment, He was at once my band officer, my friend, a piper in the band and a staff officer in Canadian Forces Europe Headquarters. 24

He and I were running over some music in the pipe major’s office, The phone rang, “Pipe Major, Sir…yes Sir…we’ll be right over.” Major General Charles Belzile, Commander CFE, wanted a word with us at our earliest convenience, We thought right now might be convenient! “The Canadian ambassador in Paris wants the Pipes & Drums in Nantes, France next week for a festival.” “Well, Sir, they are away on exercise with the brigade…for the rest of the month.” “Well, get them back!” As a junior sergeant, you may someday wish to try to convince five different army unit commanding officers that it would be very nice of them to detach several of their officers and men from a major international field exercise so that they can run off to France to play music! Major Phillips somehow, out of nowhere, produced a huge white Mercedes highway bus and a driver, money for food & beds, etc., I got my men back – not the brigadier – and we all set off. That ambassador didn’t bother to share with General Belzile that local communists were fomenting anti-NATO trouble, At our concert there was some booing from portions of the audience, However, when the big parade through Nantes took place demonstrations along the parade route began to get progressively more unpleasant; watchers began throwing objects at us. Finally, some brute leaped from the sidelines and aimed a most unfriendly baseball bat swing at my head, Drum Major Bob Mitchell – actually a major from 1 Regiment Royal Canadian Horse Artillery – interrupted the swing with st a bayonet-drill parry from his beautiful silver and gold mace - followed by a strike with the head of the mace to the man’s midriff so fierce that it drew blood! I ordered the band into two files with the instruments on the inside, My musicians were all fighting soldiers…I saw at least three dress uniform dirks begin to be withdrawn! Thinking that a bunch of pierced French civilians lying about in their main street would not go down too well with CBC reporters (or 25

with His Excellency) I quite sharply ordered those formidable weapons to remain sheathed unless Major Phillips expressly said otherwise. At any rate, the attacks did subside after that. Perhaps some racial memory injected a hint of caution when the riotous protestors saw a formed party of kilted men in feather bonnets begin to produce glistening 13 inch blades, The Duke of Wellington, fighting Napoleon’s brother in Spain, said about his own highlanders “I don’t know if they frighten the French, but they certainly terrify me!” Amen to that! We marched back to our bus, only to find as we rounded the last corner that another group of local ruffians was violently rocking it - and the highland dancing ladies trapped inside. Royal Canadian Regiment Corporal Paul Francis Capka instantly handed someone his bagpipe, roared “Royals on me” to his colleagues in the band and charged the miscreants. Major Scotty Phillips was the first ‘Royal’ to respond! The rioters abandoned the field instantly. Drum Major Mitchell and I chivvied everyone else onto the transport while Scotty somehow found a pay phone and called Lahr…I still don’t know what he said but shortly after we executed our tactical withdrawal back to the local airport a Canadian Hercules aircraft appeared from out of the east . Four huge engines still thundering, we trundled our kit up the rear ramp with alacrity. The pilot left in such a hurry that we could see the runway shrinking into the distance through the gaping, slowly closing ramp. Airborne and safe, an Air Force master corporal sought me out. “The colonel wants to see you up front, Sir.” “The colonel?...what…” I went forward and discovered a not-very-happy lieutenant colonel pilot – the commanding officer from one of the Trenton squadrons tasked across the Atlantic to support the brigade exercise and suddenly asked to evacuate the pipe band. “Do you know, Pipe Major, how much a fighting extraction costs with one of these things; I very much hope you have a good story to tell!” Poor Major Phillips...he maintains to this day that the three years commanding Pipe Major Macpherson were the longest 400 months of his life! When we got home the boys went back to playing in the mud with General de Chastelain in Sennelager. HELICOPTERS AND CAVALRYMEN The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, a cavalry unit (armoured unit, nowadays) of the British Army, was created in 1971 with the amalgamation of 3 rd Carabiniers (Prince of Wales Dragoon Guards) and the Royal Scots Greys. We in Canadian Forces Europe Pipes & Drums were privileged to work with military organizations from many NATO armies and developed unofficial 26

friendly ‘partnership’ relationships with some; the United States Army band at Stuttgart and the RSDG at Athlone Barracks in Paderborn, Germany were two in particular with whom we often worked as well as played. In 1981 444 Squadron RCAF, a helicopter unit, received their colours at Lahr, Germany, Our Pipes & Drums spent three days on the tarmac with them preparing for the presentation, We were told that a Canadian Forces military band was flying over and would play along with us at the ceremony, That band arrived and Lieutenant Colonel Dave Simmons, tired and hoarse from several days of parade rehearsals with his troops, asked that the band come over for the final rehearsal as soon as they could unlimber their instruments . The band’s director of music refused, stating that his men need to rest after the arduous 707 flight – he stated that they would be there tomorrow for the actual parade, I winced - Colonel Simmons, although jovial and always with a big smile on his face, was not a man to whom one said “no!” After I left Germany in 1982, I was his pipe major when we returned to Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. “Hah,” said Colonel Simmons, sword in sweating hand, “Pipe Major, find me another band!” I called my American friend, First Sergeant Walter E. Nail, in Stuttgart, No luck – they were leaving shortly for Bavaria on a musical mission. Then I called Bandmaster WO1 Standing of the Royal Scotts’ Dragoon Guard. The Pipes & Drums and the military band of the regiment had a wonderful working relationship. Together they produced about one beautiful ‘massed bands’ album each year for RCA records. As we have all enjoyed over the years, these creators of “Amazing Grace’ had a wonderful collection of musical arrangements for the two bands – and Mr. Standing was most kind in sharing them with us when we had need of them, Their band, like the American one, was busy, However, he said, “I’ll get you someone else” – he certainly did! A huge British army bus appeared some hours later and we scrambled to find beds, supper and breakfast for them. The 17 / 21 Lancers – the Death or Glory Boys - are another British st th cavalry outfit created by an amalgamation in 1922. Author George McDonald Fraser mentions the 17 (called the Cherry th Pickers in the Victorian army because of their bright red trousers.) A very young Winston Churchill was a troop commander in the 21 , He st participated with them in 1898 at the last cavalry charge of British Army history - Omdurman at Khartoum in Central Sudan, He and his troop actually mapped a railway route up the length of Africa from Cape Town all the way to Cairo. 27

A run-through of the RSDG music and casual entertaining of the soldiers in the Mess that evening was highly educational for a history buff like me. However, neither Colonel Simmons nor I had any idea what was in store for us he next morning! The Pipes & Drums ‘fell in’ on the edge of the tarmac, The other band pulled up to join us, They climbed down from their bus - wearing jet black uniforms with silver buttons and trim, On their heads were tall black forage caps adorned with a silver skull and crossbones badge, The only thing missing, we thought, were silver runes on their jacket lapels! They certainly must have caused quite a stir in those uniforms when they appeared in little German towns to play! They did an excellent job with us, though. VETERANS’ PILGRIMAGES Among the services that the Canadian Veterans’ Affairs Department performs for the old soldiers of the two World Wars and the Korean Conflict is to organize periodic pilgrimages where veterans from specific theatres of operations are selected to return to visit the graves of their colleagues and perform acts of remembrance. Part of my duties during my ten year stint in Ottawa with Air Command Pipes & Drums, along with serving as piper to three Chiefs of The Defence Staff, three Governors General and occasionally ‘piper to the Prime Minister’, was to accompany the veterans on these visits to play laments at the ceremonies and provide them the same music they heard throughout their days of war on the move and at dinner. Major William Leavey, another Black Watch ‘retread’ into the Royal Canadian Regiment, was the liaison officer between the VAC civil servants and the Canadian Armed Forces. He was tasked to provide soldiers for graveside firing parties, pall bearers, padres, medics, pipers and buglers, He found me! I was then tasked to find suitable horn players – the Canadian Armed Forces bands have some of the best trumpeters in the world so that was not too awfully difficult. Regimental Sergeant Major Nick Zackarak, Royal Canadian Artillery, was the Sergeant Major of National Defence Headquarters – impeccable in appearance and knowledgeable about any kind of ceremony, he was perfect to supervise the soldiers, sailors and airmen assembled for any task around the world. He and I, together with Major Leavey, roamed the planet again and again! We even had the incredible once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the closed and beautiful land of Myanmar (Burma) to commemorate the Canadian airmen lost there in WW II, They died resupplying the U.S. Army in China fighting the Japanese by flying over the eastern end of the Himalayas – the ‘Burma Hump.’ 28

Then in 1996, to everyone’s surprise, a Burmese hunter discovered the crash site of a Canadian-operated WW II Dakota aircraft missing in the jungle since 1 June 1944, Major Leavey was ordered to take in a small team to attempt to collect any remains of the six-man crew that they could find – only shards of bone and a watch, He then had to take in a small funeral team of airmen for a proper military burial alongside their colleagues, Off we went – a second chance to visit the enchanted land! The evening before the ceremony in the former capital city, Yangon, at the government hotel managed by an Australian ‘ex-pat’, we decided upon a swim after dinner and before retiring. When we made our request known there was an anxious flurry of activity – a team of hotel staff had to go out to sweep the cobras having a bedtime drink away from the swimming pool and back through the fence. The monsoon season had begun, the rats had, as usual, been flushed out of the jungle and the snakes had, as usual, followed their supper into town! On that trip we completely circumnavigated the globe in eight days; Nick and I spent the following two weeks walking into walls – jetlagged again! On another pilgrimage, this time for the Royal Canadian Navy, we travelled first to Newfoundland before going to the other side of the Atlantic. We checked in to the Royal Newfoundland Hotel in Saint John. I took my bagpipe out to the far end of the hotel parking lot, away from everyone, to blow it down into shape for the ceremonies planned for the next day. I played happily all by myself for about an hour. The next day was a whirlwind of commemoration sites, graveyards and semi-formal meals with dignitaries, RSM Zackarack and I, knowing that tomorrow was another such experience, retired to our rooms to clean our kit and get some much-needed rest. As we approached the door of my room, we noticed that it was festooned with business cards – each one a summons from one of the establishments along the famous George Street – “bring the pipes down!” I guess that perhaps my parking lot rehearsal was not as private as I had thought. We walked down the hill and as we approached the entrance, we encountered a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary sergeant standing beside his police car. “Welcome; I’ll take you into the places you should visit” he said as he threw his hat into the cruiser. He did, too – picked the spots where I played a tune along the way. However, like the pied piper, as we left each place for the next all the occupants followed us; When it was time for the sergeant major and I to return up the hill we had quite an enormous following! Then we had a police car ride back to our beds as well. On one of the ceremonies HMCS Fredericton put in from NATO patrol duties in the North Atlantic to take the veterans out for a commemoration 29

ceremony and wreath-laying. I was posted with my bagpipe on a small steel grating at the very stern of the ship – my white spats and brogues were, it seemed to this landlubber, very close to a great deal of cold salt water! As we left the harbour, passing Fort Amherst on the starboard side, I felt the first ocean swell heave me skyward. Horrified by the thought of being swept away from my little perch, I must have turned very white – the opposite of my normal ruddy complexion. The Captain, Commander G. D. Switzer, had apparently been watching me carefully from across the helicopter deck. I noticed him lean over to speak to his Coxswain. Very quickly, just before I was supposed to try to keep my shaking hands on the bagpipe chanter long enough to play ‘The Flowers of the Forest” to lament those young sailors lost to Canada in the Battle of the Atlantic, two young sailors suddenly joined me on the grating. I felt an enormous sense of relief as they firmly grasped my two elbows, “You’re alright, Sir – we’ve got you!” My pipes, my matelot guardian angels and I managed to get through the tune and regain the firm deck – a bit cold but still dry. RSM Zacharack told me that was the only time he saw me play when my face didn’t turn bright red with the strain of blowing the instrument! FOR THE LOVE OF THE BAND My wife Susan has sometimes accused me of almost immediately falling in love with every band into which I was ever posted. With the infantry battalion bands it was just natural – the Black Watch and Royal Canadian Regiment both have such glorious histories and their bands were part of that wonderful tradition, so it was just ordinary soldier’s regimental pride. With Canadian Forces Base Portage La Prairie there was only one piper on the base when I arrived…Captain James Skinner, He and I created that band from scratch in six months, With them it was akin to a mother’s love for her baby! With Canadian Forces Europe Pipes & Drums it was something else; perhaps admiration and pride more than love. Throughout the quarter-century of existence that band represented Canada with dignity and grace every day all over Europe and the Middle East. Over the quarter-century it existed that band had several great pipe majors in succession. With CFB Greenwood it was the extraordinary people of Nova Scotia, The civilians and airmen and airwomen who volunteered their time and talent to play in the band made that experience among the high points of my career. But the biggest love affair of all was with the venerable Air Command Pipes & Drums in Ottawa – now the Royal Canadian Air Force Pipes & Drums, There it was in good part the wonderful people in the band. 30

The honour of being chosen to follow Pipe Majors Archie Cairns and William Gilmour into that position would have been enough, but playing regularly for governors general, prime ministers, generals and, to quote George McDonald Fraser, “all manner of kings, queens, presidents and oriental potentates” was beyond thrilling! Those volunteer pipers and drummers absolutely stunned me with their commitment, They still do. In 1993, about a year-and-a-half after I went to Ottawa, I was in my office in Canadian Forces Base Rockcliffe when the phone rang. “Pipe Major, His Excellency Governor General Romeo LeBlanc requires you in full dress at Government House in two hours, His pipe banner has been delivered and he wants to present it and fasten it to your bass drone. Mrs. Macpherson is welcome to have tea with Madame LeBlanc at the ceremony.” Poor Susan – no one had cellular phones back then. She was having her hair cut that afternoon but I didn’t know where so I couldn’t reach her with the invitation. As I rapidly dressed the phone rang again, It was a lieutenant colonel on the staff at National Defence Headquarters. “Pipe Major, tomorrow morning the first troops leave here for Bosnia, The military band was tasked to play them off at the airport, but their Director of Music has just called to say that they are tired and would not be there! Help me out here, will you?” “OK Sir, will do.” Two places at once - again! I called Pipe Sergeant Andrew Moore, He was the most competent and best sergeant piper I met in my entire career. Andy learned to play in the Black Watch militia battalion in Montreal. A federal government geologist, he has a serious job to do, But when I told him of my latest split-personality dilemma he just told me “on you go, Pipey…I’ll take care of it.” On I went, fretting in the back of my mind, I had no ready staff of pipers and drummers available…only volunteers with jobs and real lives away from the bandroom. 31

At 0415hrs the next morning I groggily entered the Government Reception Centre at Ottawa Airport praying that I would find a few people to help me send the troopers on their dangerous way, Instead, to my astonishment, I found 43 perfectly dressed pipers and drummers asleep on their feet in a huge tuning circle. I remarked to them that the whole bunch of them were nuts! The best part of the Ottawa job, though, was working for our veterans. I was privileged to play the National Lament on 11 November for ten successive years and at the Vimy Memorial in France three separate times, I had the opportunity to travel with the veterans back through time when the Veterans’ Affairs Department pilgrimages took them once again to visit their friends and brothers lying where they fell across Europe and Asia. Best of all – I had the incredible honour to become friends with Ernest Alvia (Smokey) Smith VC, Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, on those journeys. I worked with many superb people serving in the military forces of many countries. Soldiers and police officers, whether in the French Foreign Legion, United States Marines, Royal 22 Regiment of Canada, Hong Kong Police or nd the Jordanian Army all seem to love the music of the great highland bagpipe. I have always felt quite uncomfortable giving public performances or competing but I loved every minute when I could give my music to the soldiers – in any garrison setting or in the field, Samuel Clements wrote “find someone who will pay you to do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life!” He was right…and I truly love the Canadian Armed Forces for allowing me the whirlwind adventure of a career I enjoyed. 32

It is really sad that no young people in Canada will ever again have the chance to join one of our regiments as pipers in the Regular Army to enjoy such an experience. 33