Christmas past present

In every piper and drummer’s life there is a period of maybe two years at the beginning during which parents get to fill your figurative stocking with any and every piping and drumming gifts they can get their hands on. It’s all new; it’s all good.

After a few years, young pipers and drummers begin to understand what’s what. We learn the music and the instrument and what it is to be a competitive player, so we become far more knowledgeable and selective about the items we acquire. We leave our parents behind, and there are no longer any surprise piping/drumming gifts, since they start to follow strict instructions about which items to get – “the X-Pat Mark 3 Carbon Body with Tongues Impregnated with Gold Dust Drone Reeds” are the only thing on the list. That 1975 Royal Scots Fusiliers album just won’t hack it.

My parents – my dad especially – made the most of my first few years of piping. I started when I was 11, and there was no shortage of tartan bedecked presents of vinyl LPs by terrible pipe bands and Highland dress knick-knacks that had lovely thought behind them, but missed the mark for the more informed musician.

There was the brass piper door-knocker. The LP of Seumas MacNeill gamefully attempting mostly regimental tunes (a strange collaboration of ideas). The new green wool drone cords. A bag cover in MacFarlane (?) tartan.

And then there were the parlour pipes. Back in the 1970s, before there was any talk, let alone availability, of shuttle pipes, smallpipes, border pipes or any-other-pipe-besides-the-Highland-one, I found out about parlour pipes. Parlour pipes are essentially mini-Highland pipes that use a practice chanter for a chanter and tiny cane drone reeds. Gordon Speirs, who I got occasional lessons from, had a set of ivory-mounted Henderson parlour pipes and, me, a wide-eyed 13-year-old, thought these were the coolest things. Mini anythings are appealing to nerdy kids, and mini-bagpipes were just the thing for this early-teen piping geek.

To be sure, I was wrestling away with my full-sized set of plastic-mounted Hardie pipes, but who could resist those cute little parlour pipes? Certainly not me. I become a bit fixated with getting a set, and that’s all I ever wanted for Christmas in 1977.

My dad researched parlour pipes. By that time this novelty item was rarely available, and pipe makers would only do them by request, since satisfying the core business of full-sized pipes was priority. But he found that the old Kintail company would make a special-order set.

So my dad negotiated these parlour pipes with the fine folks at Kintail. As I found out later, they were to arrive in time for Christmas, and, to be sure of that, my parents paid for them in advance. In full. Back then, they were probably about $200, but that was never loose change for my dad and mom, Depression-era penny-wise children.

Christmas came, and under the tree were a selection of piping odds and ends, and, as far as the parlour pipes went, only a card saying that they were delayed but would arrive shortly. Moderate disappointment ensued, but at least I had these treasured mini-pipes to look forward to.

Back then, the American market for bagpipe makers didn’t appear to be important to them. Quality gear and reeds were hard to get, and not until maybe the 1990s did the USA stop having to wait an eternity for anything from Scotland. So it was with these fully-paid-for Kintail parlour pipes.

We waited weeks, then months, with my dad growing increasingly impatient, even at one point calling the company to give him a piece of his mind. Promises were repeatedly made. Still no parlour pipes.

I believe the next Christmas even passed, and by then the allure of mini-bagpipes had made them an afterthought. But one day at least two years later a battered package arrived from Scotland and in it of course with the coveted parlour pipes.

As with many kids’ Christmas presents, this one got played with a few times and then mainly forgotten. I’d gotten over it before it even arrived. I still have the parlour pipes today, and they’ve been played maybe a total of two hours.

I came to think about this Christmas present while thinking about all of the pipers and drummers out there who might have been given piping/drumming-related gifts, with loving thoughts, from their parents, only hoping to hit the mark for their kid’s delicate hobby, quickly becoming more intense than they ever imagined.

After probably 20 years since being played, I got out my parlour pipes for a Christmas tune, wishing my parents could be around to hear them again.

A good thought that counts.