Trophy Laden Start to Season for Tweedvale Pipe Band.

Tweedvale Pipe Band made an early but highly successful start to the 2008 pipe band contest season last Saturday 5 April. Playing under the Innerleithen Pipe Band name and taking advantage of that band’s roots as a Royal British Legion Scotland (RBLS) band, the band travelled to Lasswade High School to take part in the 32^nd Annual RBLS Mini-band contest. Innerleithen had not entered the RBLS Mini-bands in over ten years but the early start to the season obviously suited the band as it returned home after a long day of competition laden down with trophies and medals, including the award of best band on the day irrespective of grade, the top award of the day.

The day started at 9.30am and consisted of 6 individual events. Innerleithen entered two mini-bands in the Grade 3 and Grade 2 mini-band contests, two quartettes in the quartette contest and one trio in the junior trio contest whilst two drummers were entered in the under 16 solo drumming event and two young pipers entered the solo chanter contest. This number of contest entries gave the majority of the band a run out under competition conditions. Innerleithen also set itself up for a bit of intra-band rivalry as mini-band A was made up from the more mature members of the pipe corps, whist mini-band B was composed of the younger members. This introduced an extra element of friendly competition into the day.

The test for each mini-band was a medley selection whilst the test for the quartettes was the classic march strathspey and reel set – this year the band are playing the tunes King George V Army, Captain Colin Campbell and Lexy McAskill. There was some running order problems with the contests, at one stage the event was running over an hour late, but each Innerleithen entry was ready when required and performed each test piece to a very high standard. Only a few minor errors were heard from the band on the day and the judges were certainly impressed by the bands performances. In the mini-bands the band took first and second places in both entered grades with the mini-bands swapping places in each grade - the B band won grade 3 lifting the Dove Challenge Trophy with the A band second taking the Crieff Branch shield, whilst in Grade 2 the A band won lifting the Angus and Perthshire Targe and the B band was second for which there was unfortunately no trophy. The Innerleithen A band also lifted the best band irrespective of grade award, the Margaret Bissett Plate being awarded for this. In the junior trio, the test for which was 8/9 parts of a march, the band took third place winning an RBLS Presentation quaich. In the quartettes, the A quartette took 3^rd place lifting a RBLS presentation quaich.

In the solo chanter contest, the two young pipers entered enjoyed outstanding success. Matthew Forbes won the event taking the RBLS Chanter and gold medal whilst Murray Brown took second place and a RBLS silver medal. In the solo drumming Darren Barber took second place winning an RBLS silver medal. A total of 10 prizes from 11 performances were achieved by the Innerleithen band on the day, the best performance of any band present on the day and a performance which is without equal in the Innerleithen/Tweedvale bands history.

Speaking after the RBLS Mini-band contest, Pipe Major Bruce Gillie said "I’m extremely happy with the results we achieved today. The band has been working very hard over the winter and in the last few weeks things have been starting to take shape quite well. The band’s sound and playing have really improved since the turn of the year. This contest gave us the opportunity to get a head start on the season by allowing us to run through all of our contest material in a competition setting and we grabbed the chance with both hands. I'd like to congratulate everyone who took part in Saturday's contest on their success. Hopefully it will be the first of many in the forthcoming season.”

The RBLS mini-band contest was the first of an eleven contest programme that the band has laid out for itself. Following on from their successes at Lasswade, Tweedvale will on 19 April be competing in the RSPBA Lothian & Borders Branch Solo and Mini-band contest, being held for a second successive year at Peebles High School. After this the outdoor contest season starts with the traditional opening event at Dunbar on 10 May. Band supporters are reminded that seats on most contest buses are in short supply because the playing size of the band has increased. It is essential to pre-book places on buses this year. Please contact the band secretary for further details via email: charles.gray@ed.ac.uk. If any local business would like to sponsor a Tweedvale Pipe Band coach, they are also encouraged to contact the band secretary. Further information about the band can be found on the band’s website at www.tweedvalepipeband.com.