Jimmy: Memoirs of My Life as A Piper

By James H. Mcintosh MBE

In the year 1925, James McIntosh was born into humble beginnings, in a two-room structure that would soon house a family of seven. His home was a stone's throw from the beach in Broughty Ferry, then a thriving fishing village on the east coast of Scotland. This was a time of strict social obedience and even stricter social mores. Children were to be seen and not heard. They were expected to obey the man of the house without question or cavil.

Thus did Jimmy find himself put to the bagpipes by his father and then packed off to the army as a naive teenager. He left behind brothers, sisters, and friends, as well as the familiar streets, buildings, and shoreline of his boyhood. Forced to depart the only environment he had ever known, he now had to face the big bad world alone, and off he went with his suitcase and pipes in hand, not knowing what fate awaited him.

Never one to give in easily, Jimmy determined to see it through, to make the best of his lot. He saw action during WWII and, after demob, proceeded to carve out a life for himself and his family.

Though lacking formal education, he never stopped studying and working to be the best at his music. He sought out the finest instructors and became a successful competitor in world-class competitions. He soon became a mentor to dozens of piping students and helped them do the same.

Never satisfied to "rest on his laurels," Jimmy was always looking for new projects to share his knowledge and passion. One of those was establishing the world's first piping professorship at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He traveled internationally, giving recitals, teaching, adjudicating, and organizing piping schools. Such was the success of his work that he was recognized by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who, at Buckingham Palace, presented him with an MBE for his services to bagpipe music.

In this memoir, Jimmy paints a picture in words of his lifelong dedication to his art, the people he met along the way, and the ups and downs in his life, both personal and professional. He writes as if you are sitting in the room with him, chatting by the fire. This touching memoir provides a link with the past, and through one man's vivid telling of his story, we learn how we can enrich our own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781649528179

Book preview

1

My Early Years

Let me introduce myself and tell you about my early years before I get too far along.

I was born on June 19, 1925, in a small fishing village in Scotland called Broughty Ferry, about five miles east of Dundee. I was christened James Haddow McIntosh after my grandfather who had died before I was born. (More on my namesake in the following chapter.) I was born in my parents’ home at 11 Union Street with the help of a midwife, which was a customary practice in those days.

Our home was in a block of eight houses referred to in Scotland as a but-an-ben. I don’t know where the name came from, but I assume it refers to the main room and ben the hoose to its one bedroom. In such quarters, families of many sizes would fit. At the time I was born, our family consisted of two adults and one other child, an older sister named Agnes, who was born two years before me. I don’t remember anything from this time and can only recall my father walking down Union Street from John Rodgers, the shoemaker. My father was a shoemaker by trade. This is my earliest memory.

My father had his left foot amputated when he was young because of a sore toe that was neglected, became poisoned, and had to be amputated. He was one of nine children who also had lived in poverty and had little chance in life. Such circumstances were very common in those days—no work, poor living conditions, and large families to support.

I do not remember either of my grandfathers, but I do remember both grandmothers very well. Both were widows due to their husbands having had tragic accidents at work, both fishing boat disasters.

In 1928 our family grew again with the addition of a brother, Alexander. Another change to our lives was the Great Depression, which suddenly spread all over the country and created hardship and poverty. Many men, including my father, were out of work. There were now five in our family, and we were suffering like so many other families. Our home was very poor. We had no hot water, no inside toilets, no heat other than the coal fire, and had only gaslights, which worked by putting coins in a meter.

As a young child, I never realized how primitive our living conditions were. Like most children, I spent my time playing outside the house, either on the street (no cars in those days) or in a park. When I was about nine or ten, I ventured to the seafront and the pier, where I fished for hours. This was disturbed when I had to take my younger brother with me.

It didn’t help that around 1930, another baby boy joined us, named Richard (after my father’s brother). So in spite of our hard times and lack of money, we now numbered six living in the small house. The three boys finished up sleeping in one of the double beds ben the hoose, and our sister slept in the other double bed in the same room. This arrangement lasted until another baby girl was born in 1933! She was named Anne, and she eventually shared the bed with Agnes. This completed our now rather large family.

It must have been really depressing for my mother, trying to care for five children with very little money. I always felt sorry for her. Just to get to the toilet in the morning, she needed to go outside and go along the sidewalk and around the back. On my father’s night off, he would always go to the bathroom before bed, and he always put on his bunnet (cap) before leaving the house. He said with a chuckle, Got to be careful not to bare two ends at the same time!

There was no mention of hygiene in those days. We had no hot water, and our weekly ritual on a Friday evening was having a large galvanized tub placed in front of the very small fireplace. Kettles full of hot water would be poured into the tub. The youngest child was bathed first. Then hot water would be added for the next child, followed by the next, then next—until my older sister was finished! Poverty is a very degrading thing, and it really affects one’s confidence.

Since we could not afford clothes for school, the council supplied our school wear: boots, socks, and a sweater. All the poor children were therefore dressed the same—and felt the same shame of being poor.

The same folks would be seen on a Saturday. When the shops closed, a line would form outside the back door of the baker’s shop to buy cheaply the bread that wouldn’t keep until Monday. I was sent to the fruit shop to ask for any spoiled or marked fruit that we could purchase for a few coins, and this was often our Saturday night treat! How times have changed now, and how much food is wasted today!

In the room where we ate our meals, there was a recessed area, which served as our parents’ bedroom. This same room was where we had the coalbunker, which held the coal for the fire; the fireplace, in front of which the bath was put; and the sink with cold water only. It was barely ten or twelve feet square. Virtually everything was done in that room, including cooking, and our clothes were often hung from the ceiling on a pulley to dry.

In the bedroom, which was shared by all five children, there were two double beds, two large wardrobes, my bicycle, a sewing machine, and an organ, which my brother learned to play.

These were terrible conditions, really, but like clockwork, the rent man came to collect the rent, and the insurance man always showed up to collect one’s premium. At least someone was making money. Our house was actually condemned, along with the whole block of eight houses, sometime in the 1950s. But the shell of the building was retained, and after being gutted internally, the whole block now serves as a funeral parlor!

It was quite common in those days for a man to come along, pushing a cart through the streets, blowing a bugle to get everyone’s attention, and shouting Balloons for rags! or Toys for rags! The kids would run home and ask for rags to give him so they could get a balloon. (Anyone who remembers the late great Alex Duthart will remember that this was the punch line to one of Alex’s long stories!) A few years ago, I was in a hotel in Glasgow, and there, hanging in the lobby, was an enlarged old photograph of a ragman with his cart!

My father found work as a night watchman. Work was hard to come by, and people were glad to take anything to earn some money. As a young boy, I was involved in most activities. Apart from playing on the street with a ball or a gird (a piece of metal rod fashioned into a circle, similar to a Hula-Hoop) and cleek (a straight rod with a hook), with which we would roll the gird about the streets, we also took part in the activities of the Cub Scouts, an organization connected to the church. This was developed for younger boys before they joined the Boy Scouts.

I was very fortunate to be living in Broughty Ferry, as we had the seafront and the beach, where we could play, rather than living in Dundee, beside the factories and slums. Looking back on it, our own house was in a type of slum as well and was a very depressing abode, but we had the blessed alternative of spending the summer holidays with bare feet and being out in the fresh air either at the stony beach or on the sandy beach, where we were safe. Broughty Ferry was a peaceful place with no crime. Having the beach so near was great for people who liked to swim. My father was one of these, and he was quite at ease standing on the pier on his one good leg and diving into the water from there for a swim.

Interestingly, my brother Sandy and I never learned to swim. I think this is because of the way my father thought he could teach us quickly. At the ages of eight and ten, respectively, he took us both to the pier and just threw us in! It frightened the life out of us both, and neither of us has ever gotten over it. To this day, we can still recall that experience. Although my brother became a skilled yachtsman and has always had a sailboat and I have owned several pleasure boats and love cruising the ocean, neither of us ever learned to swim. I did learn a lesson from this experience with my father. When my children were of age, they were given good swimming tuition!

Like our neighbors, we were too poor to go away for holidays (vacations). Our alternative was to visit my father’s oldest sister. Auntie Liz was married to the grieve (foreman) of a farm in Newbigging, five or six miles from us. I remember my mother pushing a pram with the two youngest children in it and us older ones walking beside her to Auntie Liz’s house. Needless to say, to hold us all, this was a rather large farmhouse set in the country, complete with a pig and hens. I was nine at this time, and I have a clear memory of walking up to the farm for fresh milk.

I was still doing my best at school, and I think when I was ten years old, the headmaster, Mr. Bryce, a short, portly man, called me to his office. When I got there, I was joined by another couple of pupils. Mr. Bryce then announced that we had been chosen to participate in the upcoming Burns Festival. He simply said, James, I want you to learn the Burns poem called ‘To a Mouse.’ I was to report back to him each week so he could check my progress.

The festival featured a full day of Burns’s work. These types of events took place all over Scotland. Eventually, I got my turn to stand on the stage and recite my poem. To my surprise, I was awarded second prize, which was The Works of Robert Burns. The same procedure took place the following year, and this time I was given A Man’s a Man for A’ That. This time, I won first prize, which was a silver medal with Burns’ head on it. I still have this medal displayed alongside my piping medals.

At ten years of age, I was like most boys, active in different organizations. I was also expected to help my father, and this included taking a flask of tea and a sandwich to where he would be acting as night watchman on roadworks somewhere. My mother spent all the evenings with us five children, trying to help us with our schoolwork. Neither of my parents were very well educated. Both came from large families and poverty, so necessity had them leaving school early to begin working.

On a Sunday, we three boys were dressed in our kilts and went to Sunday school, where my father taught a class. Afterward, we had something to eat, probably at a grandmother’s house, where we had to visit with our kilts on and sit and say nothing but yes or no to questions being asked of us. After getting home, we’d get the kilts off, and my father would take the older ones for a walk up to the Dundee docks, five miles in each direction, to see the jute boats. At times, the Indian coolies would throw chapatis (something like pita bread) down to us from the decks.

We always walked along Fisher Street and the beach, and this took us past my grandmother’s house. This was my mother’s family, and they had been a family of fisher folk. This grandmother had lost her husband in a drowning accident when he was only fifty years old. He left his wife with seven children. My grandmother Agnes Cant Martin also lost her husband in similar circumstances and was left with six children.

Many fishermen’s widows in those days were looked after by the owners of the boat who supplied them with fish that they could sell to make some money. My grandmother was one of these women who dressed in black- or blue-striped clothes and carried a creel (large basket) on each arm and one on her back with a strap on her forehead to support the basket. They then walked around the houses, selling fish. It was a hard life!

My grandmother Agnes Cant lived on Fisher Street, and she had a lovely view of the River Tay, Tayport, and the Tay Bridge. She could sit at her window and watch all the Clan Line boats sailing toward the docks in Dundee to unload jute for the mills. The house was just across the street from the Life Boat House and the beach. In fact, she used the beach to hang her laundered clothes out to dry. Her house was very convenient for us children because when playing on the beach, we dropped in on her when we needed to get something to eat or to use the toilet. She was a very gentle, quiet person, and I always thought my own mother was very much like her.

The Cant side of her family was well known in the Broughty fishing community. Two of her brothers emigrated to Canada, and as a result, I now have relatives in Nova Scotia. I managed to get in touch with them, and I met them in person in 2018 when we docked in Halifax from a cruise ship. One of the brothers was Jim Cant, and he was once a Pipe Major in Halifax. I met him in 1946 when I was on leave from Germany, and I played a few tunes for him on his pipes.

When I turned eleven years of age, my father announced to me one day that there was a man coming that evening to teach me to play the bagpipes. This took me entirely by surprise, as I had never expressed a desire to play them. However, the man arrived, and I was handed an old practice chanter. We were sent ben the hoose to the bedroom and found two chairs on which to sit. The man’s name was P/M Tom Sutherland, a former member of the Royal Fusiliers, who was then a resident in the ex-servicemen’s home, Rosendale, in Broughty Ferry. I assume my father must have met him in the Eagle Bar and had talked him into teaching me. The lesson became a weekly session, and after a while, I was given a Glen’s Tutor. I can remember the first tunes I learned: Lord Lovat’s Lament and Old Highland Air.

Later that year, in June or July, my father told me we were going on the bus down to the Buddon Campgrounds to meet someone. It turned out that the Fourth and Fifth Cameron Highlanders (Territorials) were there for their annual camp. We listened to the band playing, and then my father introduced me to Pipe Major Willie Young. I am not aware of my father having been in touch with him prior to this meeting, but I am pretty sure that he had a conversation with him that night that would greatly affect my future.

I had progressed with the lessons and was obviously ready for the full instrument. My father produced a set of silver-and-ivory pipes! I have no idea where he acquired them! They were deemed too heavy for me at the time, and one of the local pipers came to our house and bought them for £4.50.

Then one day a package arrived at our house. It was a new set of pipes, which were much lighter in weight and with plain combing. They had been sent from the Mackintosh of Mackintosh, the clan chief. I have no idea how this came about, but again I assumed my father was behind it. I loved those pipes, and I still play them today! They are an old set made by James Robertson (Edinburgh), and these were the pipes I played when I won all my awards years later. I always got good remarks on the tone of the pipes.

Later, my father had an engraved shield fitted onto the bass drone, which reads as follows: Presented to James H. McIntosh, 1938, by the Mackintosh of Mackintosh.

I now had to go to Rosendale for my weekly lessons, as there was no space in my house to play the pipes. I also joined the local pipe band and started doing parades with them. The band had no money, so on weekends, we went around the different towns, playing and taking a collection. I think there were a lot of egos among the players, because I had three different Pipe Majors while I was there, a period of less than three years.

When I was old enough to join the Boys’ Brigade at the age of twelve, I did so and became interested in joining their pipe band. I approached one of the officers and was told to go to the pipe major’s home. I went as directed, and all the boys were sitting there, playing away on their practice chanters. He told me to sit down and eventually said, Right, you play something to me. I don’t recall what I played, but when I finished, he said, Aye, ye can go away. You’ll never be a piper! When I came out of the army some twelve years later, I joined the Grade I MacKenzie Pipe Band (now known as MacKenzie Caledonia), and this same gentleman was the Pipe Sergeant. I had learned much more by then, and truthfully, I doubt if he could even tune his own pipes—he was certainly not much of a player! I’m not sure he remembered his comment to me, but I certainly remembered him!

I did continue on with the Boys’ Brigade group, but I still played with the Broughty Ferry Pipe Band. Two trips I do remember clearly were when we joined a parade for trade union people in Aberdeen and when the band went to the Royal Braemar Highland Games in 1938. I recall walking around, listening to pipers. I learned later who they were: P/M Robert Reid, John Wilson (who later emigrated to Ontario, Canada), and P/M James B. Robertson of the Scots Guards.

At that time, when you traveled to Braemar by bus, you had to get out of the bus at the Devil’s Elbow and push the bus up the hill! Then the passengers would walk up the hill and reboard the bus. That roadway has been straightened out since that time!

One of the really exciting episodes in the life of the Ferry was when the herring shoals came to the River Tay. This was a big deal because it only happened once in a lifetime on that river. Most other times, the herring were found further north off the Scottish coast and in the cold waters of the North Atlantic and the Baltic. This particular year, when the herring were discovered, the Tay was full of fishing boats from all over Britain, and the piers were loaded with wooden boxes for transporting fish around the country. We boys were able to go on the pier and watch the men bringing the basketloads of herring from the holds of the boats and loading them into the boxes. At times, they missed the boxes, which would then fall to the ground, and we were able to retrieve them and sell them around the local houses. The herring season lasted a few weeks and packed the Ferry with people and boats. It was a boom time for both the fishing boats and the locals.

I was getting to an age when I could go out and do things to make some money. In the summer months, Broughty Ferry beach became crowded with holidaymakers. I started going when the tide was out to pick whelks (periwinkles). My mother would boil them in saltwater, and afterward, I would put them in paper bags, supply a common straight pin, and walk along the beach, shouting, Whelks, penny a bag! The holiday people bought them all up.

The other summer holiday activity we had was one mile north of the Ferry. These were the berry fields, which were full of Scottish raspberries. My mother would take us up there, and we would spend all day picking berries. At lunchtime and at finishing time, she would take the buckets to where they were weighed, and she was paid accordingly. It was hard work in the heat, but the money was appreciated.

We had always been members of the local Church of Scotland, next door to my grandmother’s house. Some of the other local boys were going to the English Church and being paid to sing in the choir, so we followed suit and became choirboys in the English Church. The organist, who also taught the choir, had a holiday home across the river, near Newport in Balmerino. Often the choir would be invited for a Saturday trip there. This was another perk we looked forward to. Nowadays, parents might be reluctant to let their young boys venture on such a trip. In my opinion, the thirties were a more simple life. There were no TVs or computers to corrupt people, and parents felt quite safe sending their children off with an adult chaperone.

By this time, my younger brothers were getting music lessons as well. Sandy was learning the organ and Richard the violin. My father stated that girls didn’t do music, so they got none of these opportunities. My father had no musical training, but he could pick up an instrument and eke out a tune, purely by ear. When I got my pipes, he would pick them up and play. His favorite tune was Rothesay Bay, which is actually a folk song. He could also play the organ and fiddle. Something I have often thought about is how he could pay for lessons when my mother was always short of money for our home. I know he didn’t come home and hand over his pay packet, and I can only assume he took a big cut out for himself. It was quite unfair to my mother and us children, who were at times needing to depend on charity. To me, he was a selfish husband and not fair to my mother.

Broughty Ferry, while it was a small fishing village, had two distinct areas and cultures. The lower area was a typical fishing community known as doon the Ferry. It was common for people here to have and be known by a nickname. In my case, I was known as Toshie. One of the old worthies was called Tappy, who lived in an old boat on the beach. My pals had names like Jellicoe and Zander. One area was known as the Sandy Hole, at the sands, doon the Ferry. This place had its own form of Sandy Hole Gaelic. Some of the well-known buildings had names like Paraffin Land, Creamola Land, and the Bull Ring. Everybody knew everybody in these parts.

The second area was referred to as up the hill, referring to Forthill, Barnhill, or Camphill. In the twenties and thirties, in this small area, there were more millionaires per square mile than in any other place in Britain. These were the jute lords who owned the mills in Dundee and had their beautiful large homes in this nice, quiet part of the Ferry. Jute baron Gilroy owned Castleroy, which boasted 365 windows—one for every day of the year. The big houses were named after their owners.

Children as young as ten were employed in the mills. One area in Dundee was known as Lochee and housed people from Ireland who had been brought over as cheap laborers. Dundee at this time had changed from being a whaling port and was now known for the three Js—jute, jam (chiefly marmalade), and journalism. John Lang and DC Thomson were famous for many newspapers and publications. The Scots Magazine was one of the first publications and is still going strong today. Other comic papers had characters well-known to Scottish children of all ages, such as Oor Wullie, the Broons, Desperate Dan, and Keyhole Kate. The Friendship Book was another popular publication that was produced in Dundee.

Today most of the large homes have been demolished, and many of the old well-known areas, like the Overgate and the Wellgate, were also destroyed, with concrete monstrosities erected in their place. In my opinion, this was criminal.

Very little has changed in the Lower Ferry. The Sands and the beach are still basically the same. The old bars are still popular, places such as the Fisherman’s Bar, where Bonnie Prince Charlie is said to have stayed a night. However, one change that is noticeable to someone like myself is that when I visit the place, I see no familiar faces. It is now a desirable area in which to live, and it is full of newcomers. It is no longer a fishing community, and like so many other places, nothing ever stays the same for long. I enjoyed my life in Broughty Ferry apart from our poor circumstances, but all that was to change drastically for me in 1939.

I was working at two different jobs when I was twelve years old. I had a morning paper round and then a Saturday job at the baker’s shop. I was still at school at this time, and I handed over the money to my mother and got a wee bit back for myself. My older sister was also working in a fish shop. My life was pretty settled at this time, and my piping was progressing. In 1938 my father said to me that we were going up to Dundee. We went into a music store there, and my father enrolled me for a month’s tuition with Pipe Major William Ross from Edinburgh Castle. P/M Ross was a visiting teacher for the Piobaireachd Society. I learned that my father paid for eight lessons at 2s. 6d (two shillings and sixpence each, or half a crown, which was approximately 30¢ US at that time). All the teaching was on the practice chanter, and I recall the first tune he gave me was the 71st Highlanders from his book. At one of the lessons, there were two pipers there from the Dundee City Police Band. One of them, Peter Maynard, had been in the Scots Guards with P/M Ross. The other, Norman McLeod, in later years became Stuart Samson’s teacher. Stuart Samson later became the Director of Army Bagpipe Music in Edinburgh. When I eventually went to Edinburgh Castle much later in 1943–44, P/M Ross remembered me, and when I finished in the castle, he was referring to me as his student.

The year 1939 started as usual for me. I was planning on being a draughtsman when I finished school the following year. World War II started for Britain on September 3, however, in anticipation of the war, on 31 August, schoolchildren were forcibly evacuated from their families, with the fear that bombs would be dropped onto the cities. We were mustered at our local primary schools, carrying only our gas masks, toothbrush (if we had one), a change of underwear, and a label around each of our necks with our names on it. We then walked to the nearest railway station to be evacuated to secret destinations. My brothers, sisters, and I were all sent to a farmhouse in Tarfside, about forty-five miles north of Broughty Ferry, near Brechin. We were housed with a family named Hutchison, whom we had never before met. Each day we walked to the village school from the farm. We were told to write home so our parents would know where we had been placed!

Several weeks later, my mother turned up and took us home. I think the Hutchisons were glad to no longer have the additional mouths to feed! I was glad to be back home; however, more surprises were in store for me that would soon change my life.

On 25 October, my father came to me again and said, James, we are going up to Dundee tomorrow. I had no idea what was happening, but I could see that my mother had been crying. The following day, we went up to Dundee and went to Bank Street. We went into a building that was full of men. I was told they were being called up for the war. My father then took me in to speak to a military person, telling him, I want to enlist my boy into the Cameron Highlanders. I was speechless! I was given a form to sign, and I soon realized my father had put me into the army for the next twelve years. I was fourteen years and four months old and only four feet, ten inches tall!

My mother was heartbroken, and I certainly had no desire to go into the army! The very next day, 27 October, my father took me to the train station in Perth. I had a suitcase and a pipe case when he put me on the train for Inverness. I arrived there at 9:30 p.m. during a blackout. I had to ask two ladies how I could get to the Cameron Barracks. They pointed to a bus stop. I got on the bus, got off at the Barracks, and that was me, away from my home life, and ambitions. This was a horrific turn of events for me as a young boy who had never been out of the Dundee area and seldom away from my family.

I often wonder if my father made a deal that he would put me in the army in exchange for the set of pipes I received from the clan chief. If so, it was a bad, bad deal for me!

The map of Broughty Ferry can be found on p. 454.

2

The Story of Toshie

Perhaps this is a good place to tell you about my paternal grandfather after whom I was named. I never met this grandfather, but my father told me a good deal about him. James Haddow McIntosh was born in 1857 in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. His father’s name was Alexander. He was captain of a ship sailing from Dundee to Australia, carrying sheep and prisoners to this faraway land. Alexander’s wife would accompany him on long