On the trail of the SFU Pipe Band in Scotland
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PHOTOS: Graeme Murdoch and Valentina Bonizzi
JUBILATION as the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band is declared World Champions for the sixth time and the second-year in a row.
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PIPE MAJOR TERRY LEE with the world champion SFU Pipe Band in Glasgow, Scotland.
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By HARRY McGRATH
Scots in Canada are sometimes expected to know things that their upbringing in Scotland did not necessarily cover: all the words to Robert Burns' Address to a Haggis, for instance, or how to wear a kilt properly.
So it was with Simon Fraser University's John Buchanan, when then-President George Pederson charged him with upgrading the pipe band at SFU. "The subject was discussed on high", says John, "and as a Scot I was obviously an expert! No chance."
John did not let his lack of knowledge of piping put him off, however, and from his base in SFU Recreation, he set about the task in typically indefatigable Scottish fashion.
He phoned "everyone and their grandmother" in the local piping community and eventually realized that they were all saying the same thing: Jack and Terry Lee, two young, ambitious and energetic pipers, were the men for the job.
Terry Lee is now the long serving Pipe Major of the SFU Pipe Band and Jack Lee the Pipe Sergeant. They have led the band to the kind of success that, John Buchanan says, neither he nor President Pederson envisaged "in their wildest dreams."
Three nights ago, I was in the standing-only area of a sold-out Glasgow Royal Concert Hall gazing down on the preparations for an SFU Pipe Band concert.
I listened to current President Michael Stevenson introduce his university in general and the five-time world champion band in particular.
"We are proud of everything this university has achieved" he said "but nothing makes us more proud than the achievements of the SFU Pipe Band."
The concert that followed mesmerised all of us whether we were sitting or standing. It was compared by the hilarious Neil Dickie who, in one of his few serious moments, invited us to witness "precision and innovation" in action.
Down in the wings two photographers, Graeme Murdoch and Valentina Bonizzi from Cultural Connect Scotland, were shadowing the band as they had from the beginning of rehearsal earlier in the day.
They are part of a project called "This Is Who We Are" which, in turn, is one of an element in the Scottish Government's Homecoming Scotland 2009 initiative.
The project aims to explore contemporary links between Scotland and Canada and there is no more powerful link created in recent times than that between the SFU Pipe Band and the homeland of piping.
Today, Graeme and Valentina are back in action. SFU are defending the Grade 1 World Championship they won in 2008 at this year's competition on Glasgow Green.
Glasgow Green is the city's 'people's park'. First established 500 years ago as communal grazing land, it has seen mass gatherings in support of the trade union movement, women's suffrage and any number of the radical movements of their time. It has also seen its fair share of hangings some of them related to its radical history.
On this day, though, it is the piper's park. As far as the eye can see, 8,000 pipers and 45,000 spectators stretch away from the banks of the River Clyde in a riot of colour and noise. There are bands here from all corners of the world and SFU are battling to be the best of the best of them.
The early augers are good. SFU's performance in the MSR (March, Strathspey and Reel) is difficult to hear as a blustering wind carries the sound away from where I am standing.
A quick consultation with one of many media experts covering the event, however, establishes the general opinion that SFU and their Northern Ireland rivals, the Field Marshall Montgomery band, are ahead of the others.
Two hours later SFU reappears and plays the medley section. This time, I position myself down wind from the Grade 1 arena and everything looks and sounds seamless.
Now, all we can do is await the result. Eventually the bands return. The hats are in the air and there's a great congregation of ancient Fraser tartan in the mud and grass of the arena. SFU has won in every possible category, including the drum core and are world champions for the sixth time.
I am writing this half an hour after these scenes of jubilation in a hostelry just off Buchanan Street which is Glasgow's main shopping street. The street is not named after John Buchanan, but perhaps it should be.
Back at SFU, I hope they are considering a Lee Street. I think you had to be here to appreciate the sheer scale of the achievement.
So many pipe bands came to Glasgow having put so much effort into their preparation and practice but there was, in the words of an old Scottish song by Robert Burns "ane…aboon them aw" (one above them all) and that is something that British Columbia and Canada should be inordinately proud of.
[Harry McGrath and Graeme Murdoch are Directors of Cultural Connect Scotland, a company established to enhance creative and cultural links between Scotland and its global community.]
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