Scenes from Cambridge Highland Games (1989!)

I’ve just had a bag full of old VHS videos digitized. They’ve been kicking around collecting dust for years; after having sourced a place for a digitization job for The Pipers’ & Pipe Band Society of Ontario, I thought I’d get my lot done at the same time.

So. Here is a half hour peek at the games in Cambridge, Ontario. As they happened, Saturday, July 15, 1989. Cambridge games then were viewed as especially important to competitors. The Piobaireachd Society’s Gold Medal was then associated with the event and held the Friday before the games in town. For years the games were known as the “Canadian Championships”. There was always a lot of cross-border support for the contest, too. In fact, on this day, Alistair Hanning from New Zealand took part in the competitions. And cleaned up. He was “Piper of the Day”.

As I viewed this vid a number of things struck me (aside from how very young many of us appear):

• The modest size of grade one bands
• The impressive number of drum majors participating in the massed bands
• The bright tempo of jigs in the professional solo piping
• My stylish mullet
• The number of great people – and characters – of the games who are no longer with us

And, that the games haven’t changed all that much.

And that sunny, summer days are just around the corner.

M.