Africa 2

Day 5 - April 2
Up v early for drive back to Jo'burg. Got there about 3pm and blew the pipes. Not as sharp as I thought, despite altitude, so decided against using Shepherd chanter. Lifted reed and adjusted tape instead. Tried through a few tunes for tomorrow's recital. Blew pipes again later and notied they had settled a little more and made a few fine adjustments to tape and replaced bits that had started sliding in the heat. Reception for the SPSW committee and guests was at 6pm. Great to see so many familiar faces again. Alan announced that he was retiring after 30 years as President and introduced the new President Chris MacRoberts. Chris Mulinder explained that the Society wanted to make a complete break with the past generation and set things solidly in the future hence the promotion of Chris, a very mature 22 years old. The new President then made a presentation of a plaque and a book to Alan and Merlyn and there were congratulations all round.
*
Day 6 - April 3
Prepared for recital. Pipes going v well. Interviewed Alan for CoP Radio. He also showed me a nice photograph of his father's old band, Pretoria Juveniles, with their instructor Ewan Gillies. The photograph was taken in 1918. Alan still has his father's manuscript book in which Gillies would write out by hand all the exercises and tunes he had to learn. Apparently he did this for all the boys in the band. No Tutor 1 in those days. Alan brought out a box full of the Society's tapes. They all seemed in pretty good nick, even though they were reel to reel. I explained that when we were confronted with a similar situation with the Masters of Piobaireachd source material, again mostly reel to reel tapes, I took the lot along to a studio and got a price for the digitising as a job lot. As there was no deadline the studio - and our subsequent audio engineer Dave Fisher - were able to slot the work in between studio sessions and that way keep costs down. In our case the Scottish Arts Council generously stepped in with a grant and four months or so after first delivering them we had scores of DAT tapes on which the MoP series was founded.
To the recital. Good crowd. Played light music and 'Lament for Alan, My Son' and the 'Big Spree'.