Our next stage of the Trail started with a bang in the historic Highland town of Fort William, three workshops in three different primary schools in one day! We visited Upper Achintore, Fort William Primary and Fort William RC School, all of which were extremely enthusiastic about our visit. Everyone participated well and there were some excellent questions from the staff and children. We delivered the workshop to about 250 kids that day – very busy but completely worth the effort.

The next day, we headed up toward Skye where we visited two schools either side of the bridge – Kyle Primary on the mainland and Kyleakin Primary across the water on Skye. We started in Kyleakin Primary, where we met a great bunch of kids – eight of which already played the chanter. Pipe Major Taylor was impressed by the level of competence of the kids, thanks to the excellent tuition from their teacher Mr Stuart. Later that day we visited Kyle Primary, a larger school and again full of talented kids. We had great time there with lots of positive feedback, with around 125 kids taking part in the workshop.

That evening, we joined in a small music session in the Plockton Inn, which is famous for its Scottish folk music. The room was packed with locals and tourists, who were treated to a session of great music played by some of Scotland’s finest musicians. Many thanks to Sandy and Marcus for letting us join in.

Portree Primary was our next destination. We’d previously visited the school back in April to deliver a workshop but we couldn’t fit everyone in, so we came back again! The school is bulging with enthusiasm and talent, with lots of eager students. It was a pleasure to teach them, thanks to their first class behaviour and support for teachers – a big thanks goes out to headmaster Mr Finlayson.

That evening we played in the Pier Hotel, they don’t usually host live music but it turned out to be an excellent session. A big thanks to Donald, Frazer and Anne for looking after us so well.

The next day, we took the ferry across to Uist and travelled down to Daliburgh School in South Uist. There were around 20 young chanter players who were excellent, a credit to the fine tuition from Mr Donald MacDonald. Around 30 kids gave the drumming class a go and despite never having played the drums before, they thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the lesson. An added bonus to the morning was a first class performance from Aberdeen OTC Drums and Pipes, led by Pipe Major Mike Laing. It really added some buzz to the day, many thanks to the entire band.

In the evening, we got together with Aberdeen OTC Drums and Pipes and gave a public performance at the Lochboisdale hotel. Dozens of locals turned up to watch a mini beating retreat, which was followed by a first class music session. I was a great night which will be remembered for years to come.

The last workshop of this stage of Trail was held in Linoclate High School, Benbecula. This workshop was tailor made for the school’s pipes and drums band. Their piping tutor had asked us to help the band prepare for the world pipe band championships. We covered musical performance and drill which will help them at the championships. Hopefully we’ll see them again before the event.

That wrapped up this latest phase of the Trail. So far, we’ve delivered the workshop to almost 5000 children across Scotland. We’re taking a short break and hope to be back again in September to visit more schools around the country.

If you’d like us to visit your school when we start again, please get in touch – we’d love to hear from you. Until then, there’ll be lots of great pipe and drum music at Armed Forces Day events around Scotland for you to watch, have a great summer!