John Walsh
What age were you when you started piping?
I think I was around 11 years old when my mother saw an advertisement in the newspaper, a band called The Hazely Mansfield Pipe Band were looking for pipers and drummers. So I went to their practice room and asked for drum sticks as I wanted to be a drummer. But I think it was Brian Slack said they didn’t have any drum sticks and to come back in 6 or 7 weeks they should have some then ……but meanwhile take this practice chanter and tutor book. Of course, the sticks never did show up!
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Here’s a young John in Bradford uniform, long before international success.
How long were you with Bradford, and who taught you?
I was with the band for 7 or 8 years. I don’t remember one particular teacher . I was helped with various pipers ….Bill Balmforth, Ian Cummings, Walter Ingham, John Gilchrist and Donald Ryder. I bought a couple of good pipe band albums and managed to get on the pipes. The photo is of me playing for the highland dancers on Donald Ryder’s pipes, I might have been close to 13 years old.
What have been your biggest achievements within the piping world?
After moving to Scotland in 1973, I played with a Grade 2 pipe band Lanarkshire Police for the season then moved over to the Shotts and Dykehead p/b. With them we won all the major championships except the world championship.
I went to Canada in 1977 for a visit. When I returned I ended up in the British Caledonia pipe Band for a year, there were some top pipers in that band.
I emigrated to Toronto in February 1980 and joined up with a small group of pipers that eventually turned into 78th Fraser Highlanders and eventually in 1987 we won the World Championship.
We moved to Antigonish in Nova Scotia in 1993. I did some teaching and we started our business John Walsh Bagpipes Ltd. Purely by accident I joined up with Rob Mathieson who was the pipe major of Shotts and went and ended up back in the band. I would fly backwards and forwards for the competitions and as if by magic we won the World Championships, that was 2005.
This was a photo in 1987 when we had won the worlds. That little pointy thing in front of the bass drum is the trophy.
How did Bradford help you on your journey, and what key takeaways did you learn there?
If I hadn’t started playing with the City of Bradford pipe band I might never have learned to play the bagpipes at all, and I would have had a different life altogether. With playing in Bradford I learned not only how to play the pipes but how and what to play for audiences that didn’t know anything about bagpipes. I have played in bars and pubs for a few people and functions all over the world. I played for 3500 people on a stage in Germany (I was told it was for about 30 people !!).
What would be your advice for future players starting out at Bradford?
Learning to play the bagpipes can seem daunting at the start with all the scales that need to be played and practiced before any tunes are played but is an amazing instrument to play.