A professional piper in peace & war: The autobiography and memoirs of Pipe Major John Wilson of Edinburgh, Scotland and Toronto, Canada

The autobiography and Memoirs of Pipe Major John Wilson of Edinburgh, Scotland and Toronto, Canada Pipe Major John Wilson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and received his first bagpipe lessons in Edinburgh Castle in 1915 from Pipe Major Robert Thomson, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. He later received tuition from A.R. MacLeod. In 1916, Roddie Campbell came to Edinburgh and John became one of his star pupils and kept receiving lessons from this great player, composer and teacher for twenty years. John was an outstanding boy piper but when he was twelve years of age, he received a tremendous set back. On the day before the Armistice in 1918, he was toying with a piece of detonator when it exploded and blew off the major parts of three fingers of his left hand. This put an end to John’s piping career, or so everyone said, but John had other ideas. When he got the bandages off for the last time. he got his brother to take him to a maker of artificial limbs and inquired if it would be possible to get artificial fingers fitted which would enable him to play the pipes again. He received a regretful but very definite assurance that this would be utterly impossible. Nothing daunted, John decided to have a go at trying to play with the little stumps. Determination is a wonderful asset, and, when combined with youth and a great love of the highland bagpipe, it simply wouldn’t be denied. When the meetings of the Highland Pipers’ Society started again in the fall of 1919, the piping fraternity was astonished to see and hear John Wilson playing the pipes once again. In 1920 John completed at Scotstoun and won third prize in the Amateur Piobaireachd event. John on many awards. In 1926 he won the coveted Gold Medal for Piobaireachd at Oban. John had a very successful piping career. Reading this book will leave you in awe of one of the world’s greatest pipers……against all odds!