BY JEANNIE CAMPBELL MBE.
The first Grant’s Championship, later renamed as the Glenfiddich Championship, was held at Blair Castle in October 1974. From the beginning Liz Maxwell of William Grant and Sons and Seumas MacNeill of the College of Piping were the main organisers.
In later years it has been organised by the National Piping Centre with funding from the William Grant Foundation. From 1985 onwards the Balvenie Medal for services to piping has been awarded annually. The Glenfiddich Fiddle Championship was added from 1989 onwards and was held on Sunday each year, the day after the Saturday Piping Championship. This was discontinued in 2016.
At the first competition in October 1974 advertising showed that there were twelve invited pipers. The starting time was to be 2.30pm so with twelve piobaireachds and twelve MSRs in which the tunes were played twice over, the playing would probably have gone on long into the evening. The ticket price was £2 and this included high tea and late refreshment.
The Dundee Courier reported: “Late invitation – and he’s champ. Eleven of the world’s finest pipers gathered in Blair Castle on Saturday to compete for the 1974 Grant’s piping championship and the highest prize-money in piping. The contest took place in the castle’s Great Hall where, in years past, the Duke of Atholl’s pipers would have entertained banqueting guests. Over 100 enthusiasts from home and abroad filled the hall. The number of young people present at Saturday’s competition was commented on by the sales director of William Grant & Sons, Ltd, sponsors of the event. For the winner, James McIntosh, 137 Aberdour Place, Dundee, playing at the event was as much a surprise as carrying off the trophy. He was only told on Wednesday that since one of the original list of pipers couldn’t make it he was being given an invitation. “Before coming up today I didn’t really consider myself for a place,” he said later. After the contest, James travelled home to Dundee to be with his wife, son and twin daughters. Mr McIntosh’s 22-year-old son, Roddy, a gamekeeper with the Earl of Mansfield, will be married next weekend in London and this was the reason for the family get together.
“The competition was split into two sections, piobaireachd and march, strathspey and reel. James came first in the piobaireachd event but was unplaced in the other. No one, in fact, won a prize in both sections so in the opinion of the judges the piobaireachd player took precedence. Runner-up in the contest was the winner of the march, strathspeys and reels, Hugh MacCallum, from Bridge of Allan, he is a teacher of piping at Stirling University. James played Beloved Scotland, which may have been composed by one of the last of the MacCrimmons, the legendary Skye family of players and teachers. James, a module tester with NCR, is tutor to the Tayside Pipers’ Society in Dundee and a keen advocate of the teaching of the art of piping in schools. With others he is trying, so far unsuccessfully to persuade the education authority in Dundee to appoint a full-time piping teacher.”
Results
Piobaireachd: 1. James McIntosh, 2. Arthur Gillies, Kilchrenan; 3. Iain MacFadyen, Kyle of Lochalsh: 4. James MacGregor, Glenalmond.
March, Strathspey and Reel: 1. Hugh MacCallum; 2. John Burgess, Alness; 3. Angus Macdonald, London; 4. Donald Morrison, Aberdeen.
Grant’s championship: 1. James McIntosh, 2. Hugh MacCallum, 3. Arthur Gillies.