Hebridean Peat Cutters Grand Ceilidh

The University of Glasgow is organising a Ceilidh in St Andrew’s in the Square to raise funds for the Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre, Glasgow and the Anthony Nolan Trust.

Sponsorship raised will enable world-class scientists to continue their vital research into the causes of and treatments for leukaemia. Your involvement will help ensure a happier, healthier future for leukaemia sufferers everywhere.

For tickets or further information please contact Lindsey McArthur on 0141 330 8007 or at l.mcarthur@admin.gla.ac.uk

Date: Monday, August 24 2009
Time: 19.30
Venue: St Andrew’s in the Square
Category: Social Events

Join The Neil MacMillan Ceilidh Band “A Piper, Singer, Dancer” and Jock Murray & The Hebridean Peat Cutters for an evening of traditional music and dance.

Tickets £10 from Ticket Soup, 0870 013 0230 or email: setup@secextra.com

All proceeds to be donated to The Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre and The Anthony Nolan Trust.

Pipers’ Ceilidh – Live recording of P/M Donald MacLeod’s farewell public performance

Pipers’ Ceilidh – Live recording of P/M Donald MacLeod’s farewell public performance in the Dorchester Hotel, Glasgow November 1977 with Duncan Johnstone as guest piper. You can hear from the reception that the audience obviously had a great affection for PM MacLeod. Duncan Johnstone’s piping on the first half of the CD is stunning! There are also two Gaelic songs sung by Donald Ross and Archie MacTaggart. Recorded with the support of the Scottish Pipers’ Association. £11.25 (£12.50 for first time customers).
http://www.footstompin.com/products/cds/bagpipe/pipers_ceilidh

Donald MacLeod, MBE, was born in Stornoway, on Lewis, in the Scottish Hebridean Islands in 1916. He became a piper for the Seaforth Highlanders in 1937, reaching the level of Pipe Major after only four years.
During World War II, he served in France with the 51st Highland Division, was taken prisoner by the Germans at St. Valery, escaped during a forced march and managed to return to the UK. In 1945, he piped his battalion across the Rhine during an assault crossing – even though he had been forbidden to do this by his commanding officer.

During his army career, he was highly successful in piping competitions. After the war, his genius as a piper brought him every competition honor, winning the Gold Medal in 1947 and many others. MacLeod retired from the army in 1963 and from competition in 1966, but neither marked the completion of his piping career. He continued to give recitals in Scotland and around the world, and he provided instruction to many pipers at all levels of ability.  Like all the truly great pipers of the past, ‘Wee’ Donald’  wore his honours lightly and modestly.  He was always ready to help those less supremely gifted than himself.

A brilliant and prolific composer, he published six books of light music (marches, airs and dance music) – The Man from Skye,  Butterfingers, The Duck, MacLean of Lewis  Crossing the Minch  were among his many compositions -as well as a book of piobaireachd.

He was awarded the Membership of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1978 for outstanding service to piping.  He died suddenly in Glasgow in 1982.

In his memory, The Donald MacLeod Memorial Competition, an annual invitational piping competition held on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland was inaugurated in 1994 by the Lewis & Harris Piping Society.

The Tin-Kin by Eleanor Thom

Eleanor’s brilliant new book.

the tin-kinWhen her aunt Shirley dies, Dawn finds herself back in her claustrophobic home town in Northern Scotland for the first time in years. She spends her days caring for her small daughter, listening to tapes of old country songs and cleaning Shirley s flat, until one day she comes across the key to a cupboard that she was forbidden to open as a child. Inside she finds an album of photographs, curling with age. A young couple pose on a beach, arms wrapped around each other; little girls in hand-me-down kilts reveal toothless smiles; an old woman rests her hands on her hips, her head thrown back in blurry laughter. But why has her aunt treasured these pictures secretly for so long? Dawn’s need for answers leads her to a group of Travellers on the outskirts of Elgin. There she learns of a young man left to die on the floor of a cell, and realises that the story of her family is about to be rewritten… Weaving between narratives and decades, ‘The Tin Kin’ is a beautiful moving novel about love, hardship and the lies and legends that pass between generations. It is a striking, unforgettable debut.

Publisher: Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd; First Edition edition