NOT SO SEVENTH HEAVEN FOR TWEEDVALE AT COWAL
Tweedvale
Pipe Band
travelled west before the crack of dawn last Saturday to participate in the last major pipe band championships of the year
at the Cowal Highland Gathering, the self-styled “biggest highland games in the world”. The early departure time
was necessary due to the band playing in their Grade 4A qualifying heat at 9.18am. The final of Grade 4 A was not scheduled
until 3.45pm meaning a long delay between morning and afternoon performances. The weather in Dunoon was also very unkind towards
all the bands, with heavy showers being the order of the day thus making the achievement of a quality sound difficult. Under
these circumstances Tweedvale Pipe Band put in two creditable performances, firstly
of their qualifying 2/4 marches “Greenwoodside” and “Earl of Mansfield” and then in the final of the
4/4 marches “Jack’s Welcome Home”, “Sruleen Park”, “Bessie Weatherston” and “Lord
Lovat’s lament”. The bands performance in the final was during one of the few dry spells of the day. Though the
band considered their performance in the final to be well worth a prize, the judges thought otherwise with the band marked
around the middle of the grade in both piping and drumming. When the final results were tallied, Tweedvale came in seventh
place. The Grade 4A Cowal Championship was won by Lanark & District Pipe Band. This placing did not affect Tweedvale’s
placing in the RSPBA Champion of Champions table too much, the band dropping one place to equal fourth due to Lanark tying
for second place because of their Cowal win. The band is therefore well placed for promotion to Grade 3. Tweedvale Pipe Band’s
attendance at the Cowal Championships was made possible by generous coach sponsorship from Brown Brothers of Peebles, to whom
the band extends its thanks.
Speaking
about the Cowal result, Tweedvale’s Pipe Major Bruce Gillie said, “Whilst it’s always nice to take a prize
at a major championships, I thought we had played better than seventh. The band was very happy with its performance in the
final and thought we were in with a shout of a good place. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. I’d like to thank all
the band members for their hard work over this season. We’ve put in some really good performances and shown ourselves
to be one of the best bands in the grade over the season and hopefully our efforts will be rewarded by the band being upgraded
to Grade 3 next season. I’d also like to thank Brown Brothers of Peebles for sponsoring our coach to Cowal.”
Tweedvale Pipe Band now has a free weekend before
participating in their final contest of the year at Peebles on September 10. The band will be participating in the Grade 4
and Grade 3 contests at Peebles. Tweedvale Pipe Band is drawn to play 13th out of 16 bands in Grade 4 and 15th
out of 17 bands in Grade 3. Tweedvale will be working especially hard to do well at the Peebles contest as the band has been
the top placed Lothian and Borders band in each of the previous six local contests held under the auspices of the RSPBA Lothian
and Borders Branch and could make it a clean sweep with a good placing at Peebles.
