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My dad said when I first started; the pipes were bigger than me!! From the age of 2, I used to sit on the turnstile beside him at Gretna Green whistling tunes as he played the pipes, and he often commented that I made more money than him!!!! We used to all have a ball at Gretna (my sister, Sharon and brothers, Sean, Paul and I) and gave mam, a well-deserved rest during school holidays from the 4 pipers in the family!! |
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| From the age of 9, I played every year at local events including ‘Crowning of the ‘Queens’, Gala days, Weddings and Burns Nights.. I was fascinated with the bagpipes from an early age and practiced every evening for 4 hours after school so I could be like my brothers and dad. At age 9, I entered my first under 15 competition after 6 weeks on the chanter and achieved 2nd place out of 37 entrants. My brother, Paul, won the cup that year, and I won it the following year. It used to take me a bit longer than most children to get to school as I used to march to school in 2/4 time to ‘The first division of Beaumont Hamel’, whistling the pipe tune as I went to practice for my next competition..I used to hold a ruler under my desk at school and practice my tunes on it, pretending it was a chanter, when I got bored!! My tutor, Alex Watson of Annan, and dad were amazed with my progress. |
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