Descended from pi Morvern Lines
There is something about absolute mastery in any profession which is unmistakable when seen or heard.
‘Sovereign sway and masterdom’, as Shakespeare called it, speaks for itself. For example, an onlooker does not need to have any knowledge of tennis to recognise a master player when Andy Murray comes onto Centre Court at Wimbledon and raises his racket. The authority of absolutism comes through. It is enough to watch him play in a grand slam final to know you are in the presence of greatness.
So it was for me in Ross-shire one evening earlier this year when, after dinner was over and there is that kind of night magic which grows out of companionship, age and good conversation and flourishes best in an old candle-lit house in the Highlands, I found myself listening intently to two pipers I had not met before.
Until that night, I had heard good pipers playing well. But this these two were different. Their timing, rhythm and expression were faultless and exhilarating.
Seton Gordon (1886-1977), the distinguished journalist, Highland historian and piping judge who had been taught by the legendary Pipe Major John MacDonald MBE of Inverness, used to quote him as saying: ‘You can have wonderful fingers, you can have wonderful pipes, but if you haven’t got expression, it is completely useless.’
An accomplished piper has natural talent, dedication, a love of the instrument and, above all, a perfectly tuned bagpipe which, even to the untrained ear, is immediately recognised. The Highland bagpipe is a complex instrument and requires a high level of skill and experience to maintain it. It cannot be left for long periods in a car or a cupboard and immediately produce the range of notes it is capable of.
The late Col Jock MacDonald, of Viewfield, Skye, jocularly told Russell Harty in Inverailort Castle in 1975, when he was making the award-winning documentary about the Glenfinnan Games, that the pipes must be female because to tune them and get them to play nicely you have to coax them, squeeze them and whisper to them how beautiful they are.
The first piper I heard that evening was Scott Burgess Hay from Forres in Morayshire. According to an old saying, it takes seven years of his own learning and seven generations before that to make a piper. If that be true, it is little wonder there are few weddings, funerals and Armistice Day parades he hasn’t played at in Morayshire since he was a boy.
Scott’s family piping history, I later learned, goes back to the time of the MacDonalds, Lords of the Isles and to tutoring the MacCrimmons, masters of their craft and pipers to the chiefs of Clan MacLeod for an unknown number of generations. His great-great-grandfather, Alexander MacDougall, who spoke Gaelic and English, was born in Sloch, Ardnish, Arisiaig, in 1878. He spent time on Inverailort Estate employed as a deer stalker by Mrs James Head before moving to Glen Tanar and finally to Aberdeen to live with his son John at the Station Hotel, Bucksburn, where he died in 1967. He loved music and encouraged his children to play the pipes. Scott’s grandfather, also called John, was a world champion and multi gold medal holder who began playing when he was about 10 years old. He won all of the major piping prizes, including the Gold Medals at the Northern Meeting in Inverness and the Argyllshire Gathering in Oban. He was a leading exponent of the ‘Balmoral’ style of piping, having been taught piobaireachd by Bob Brown, The Queen’s Piper. John had no sons and it was left to his daughter Fiona, an accomplished piper, fiddler and Celtic artist, to carry on the piping tradition by marrying Burgess Hay, Scott’s father.
Burgess was named after his father’s friend and mentor, John Davie Burgess MBE - and what piper worth a single grace-note has not heard or benefited from the judgement and skill of that exalted figure?
Scott is a highly respected and admired piper who was taught by his grandfather. When he was on Uist studying Scottish traditional