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The four-part BBC Radio Scotland series was in reality the sequel to the MacCrimmon book, bringing the dishonest history of pibroch to the present day. I showed how Angus MacKay had changed his father's music and also exposed Campbell-K's obsession with Angus, leading to the series-title, which came from a poem by Walter Scott.
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O, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive. |
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1. Controversy’s Dark Harvest
(recorded 28 March 1984: not broadcast until 28 September 1985)
Why it was essential to write the MacCrimmon book. The petrification of the Piob Society. The conspiracy of silence after the book came out. The rudest phone call ever received by The Scotsman features editor (from John MacLellan) followed by the most abusive correspondence in the newspaper’s history. My final letter, exposing The Red Weasel’s drunk lecturer revealing the secret meeting at MacNeill’s college of piping, to destroy the traditional styles of playing pibroch. The mystery of the John MacKay MS. The two-month lag and the old woman who persisted in reading grossly insulting material over the phone to the lady publisher, bringing her to tears. The back-lash of insults. How Robert Reid had to alter his playing at the MacCrimmon cairn unveiling in 1933 to accommodate John Macdonald.
The smear campaign moves to Dublin. The kernel of a mystery. All I had done was show the legend was deeply suspect. But the smear campaign became too massive and obsessive. Something else was being concealed. Afflicted by malicious gossips all my life, I decided to reveal the cruellest hoax of all. How the MacCrimmon legend had been used as part of a confidence trick. Robert Reid’s letters about “the MacCrimmons and such imaginary tripe hounds” and discovering the MacCrimmon pipes were fakes.
How the John MacKay MS had been deliberately suppressed. Campbell-K’s insulting letters, concealing the truth that Angus MacKay had altered his father’s music. Mentions of pibrochs. Excerpts were played from Lament for Donald MacDonald of Laggan, first the father's version of the opening or the urlar, Donald of Laggan john.mp3 then came Angus's version of the same excerpt donald of laggan angus . Next was played In Praise of Morag, first the father's version of Variation 1 in praise of morag john.mp3 , then the son Angus's version of the same movement in praise of morag angus.mp3 ; then came The Big Spree, contrasting, first, the father’s version BigSpreeJohn with the alterations of the son (Angus) big spree angus.mp3 .
2. The Hanoverian Hoodwinkers
(recorded 17 May 1984: not broadcast until 29 September 1985)
The historical deception of the piper. The instrument suppressed after the ’45 for 40 years until the tunes were almost forgotten. Then pipers were needed for the new Highland regiments. Revolution sweeping the Western world. How the government tricked Highlanders into the regiments to remove their security threat, and provide an army of political innocents to fight their brothers and cousins in the Americas who had already escaped the poverty in the Highlands.
How the Highlanders and their loyalty to their chiefs were cynically corrupted by the Southern government into doing their dirty work. The chiefs had mostly strutted off to London, where they begged the king for commissions to raise their own regiments – for the notorious “shower of gold”. But there were no pipers left. So the chiefs started their own trade union to restore tartans and preserve the music – which they had already helped to destroy. How they started up piping contests, and how the results were rigged from the start.
The letter from Skye proving the MacArthurs and the MacCrimmons “had long gone” in 1778. How the families had to yield up their finest sons for the clan regiment, otherwise they were flung off their ground, rented from the clan chiefs. How the families began to leave in ever-growing numbers
Walter Scott: O what a tangled web he wove indeed. until the cost of emigration was bumped up so high no one could afford it, preventing the young men from escaping the country. How pipers were given big money to attend the Edinburgh competitions – haunted by recruiting sergeants.
How Walter Scott waddled in to the act. How he stole the emigrants’ lament and rewrote it into the MacCrimmon theme song in 1818, getting it all wrong. How his accomplice heard the “last” MacCrimmon playing pibroch – but none his family allegedly composed. One was The MacGregors’ Gathering from which an excerpt is played macgregors gathering cameron style.mp3 . How they were changing tunes names willy-nilly. How in the midst of it young John Campbell turned up with the canntaireachd, giving the original titles of the tunes, and was promptly slapped down. How Scott had begun to invent the legend and the book of canntaireachd blew it to bits.
3. Angus MacKay – Messiah or Madman
(recorded 28 March 1984: not broadcast until 13 October 1985)
How Campbell-K, obsessed with Angus MacKay, brainwashed modern pipers into believing he was a Messiah. Chapter and verse of the obsession. How Angus jumped the queue to get first prize at Edinburgh – the year before “his” book was due out. The delay while Angus went to Islay. Was it to learn canntaireachd?
How the canntaireachd original of Red Alexander of Glengarry’s Lament, formerly called Glengearries March, has a beautiful thumb variation which Angus MacKay had copied out in canntaireachd, but could obviously not understand, otherwise he would have added it to his own version . I played the variation, which no-one had previously heard.glengarrys march.mp3
Angus MacKay’s personal case history, leading to the revised diagnosis showing that he had been mentally afflicted around 1838, when “his” book was published two years late. The diagnosis, which was tampered with in the MacCrimmon book, is corrected.
How I showed that Angus MacKay did have helpers for the 1838 book, despite Campbell-K’s false claims about his hero. How I showed for the first time, as a professional writer, that Angus MacKay could not have written the historical part of the book, by contrasting the first sentence of the autobiographical note in one of his MS books: “This is a brief account of my father family John MacKay, commonly called Iain MacRuairi of Eyre, in Rarsair…” with the “gaudy prose” in the dedication to the 1838 book.
How the MS of the 1838 book has never turned up -- although everything else has -- which would instantly prove whether he wrote the music for the book or not.
How the elongated “E” cadence was first used in the 1838 book (the reason why was censored from the script and never broadcast) and how Angus MacKay rewrote his own MS books afterwards in the same disordered style, presumably not knowing the key to the code in “his” own published book.
Excerpts were played by me first from John MacKay’s maccrimmons sweetheart john.mp3 and Angus MacKay’s maccrimmons sweetheart angus.mp3 versions of MacCrimmon’s Sweetheart, showing where Angus had stuffed in the lengthy “E” cadences. Then I exposed the false claim by Campbell-K that the 1838 book was instantly accepted as “the Pipers’ Bible” – which it was not. Nor was Angus MacKay “well-educated”, nor did he possess the attributes claimed by Campbell-K.
Where the Cameron and MacPherson styles really came from, and how Angus was said to have had “a style all of his own” which differed from both but was falsely proclaimed by Campbell-K and Grant as the authentic style and foisted on pipers, who were forced to play the distortions if they wanted prizes, or even recognition, otherwise they were out
4. Who Stole The People’s Music?.
(recorded on 28 March 1984: not broadcast until 13 October 1985)
How Robert Reid confronted Campbell-K and Grant at Oban in 1948 about their crooked judging of the Gold Medal contest. Told them what he thought of them. How Campbell-K rounded on him and the crazy impudence he came out with, which baffled Robert Reid ever afterwards. Why he decided to abandon playing in competition and the truth about why he ordered in his will that all his MacDougall Gillies MSS were to be burned after he died. The skinhead treatment. Robert Reid died and the scripts were duly burned to preserve their sanctity.
Robert Reid’s opinion of John Macdonald as a piper. But Macdonald had rebelled in secret. His letters to Seton Gordon, blowing the whistle on Campbell-K and Grant. The fosgailte tunes on which no-one should play an a mach. How Robert Reid pointed out that Campbell-K had also ruined the taorluath of Donald of Laggan.
And how Robert Reid emphatically stated that Campbell-K was trying to destroy the Cameron Style.
How John Macdonald corroborated in writing to Seton Gordon what Robert Reid had said all along. The correct way of playing the second-last bar in the urlar of I Got a Kiss of the King’s Hand. Where the false way came from.
How the singling of The Little Spree was also corrupted by Campbell-K, who then instructed John Macdonald to teach it to his pupils, Nicol, Brown and Donald MacLeod. How Bert Barron was tricked in turn by Nicol.
How Macdonald specified how he himself played The Little Spree, with the long theme notes and the short A’s as he was taught by Calum MacPherson. How Macdonald then taught his own pupils the perverse way – and where it, too, came from.
How the letters of John Macdonald time after time exposed the crookedness of Campbell-K and Grant, pointing out that the “preservation” of pibroch had passed into the wrong hands. How the suppressed 1st series of Piob Society books stressed that Angus MacKay was no greater an authority than his brother, John.
The heavy G grace note in the D echoing beat in Children’s Lament, childrens lament angus and how clumsy it sounds, compared to the traditional C grace note in the genuine Cameron style childrens lament.mp3 .
How the taorluath of Seaforth’s Salute came to be played upside down. How it sounded in Angus MacKay's 1838 book earl of seaforth angus.mp3 – and how it properly sounded when it was played in the Cameron style earl of seaforth cameron.mp3 .
How the so-called “Northern” school, which allegedly came from John Macdonald, in reality came from Angus MacKay’s MS books, containing “the style all of his own”. How Macdonald later refused to teach any more of the tunes "...as written by the P.S." and informed Seton Gordon that Campbell-K was a liar and his Kilberry book was just the same.
How Macdonald claimed Campbell-K had shorn The Vaunting of its traditional beauty. Like this.
the vaunting rage of drunkneness kilberry.mp3 How the tune was really played by the Camerons as The Rage of Drunkenness. Like this. rage of drunkeness.mp3 . and performed by me in the traditional way to end the programmes, saying: “…All sacrificed to a former High Court judge’s obsession with a lunatic. And a dead legend.”
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