2011 Judge

Major Bruce Hitchings MBE BEM

Was born in Huntersville, New Zealand and started playing the pipes at the age of eleven.  By the time he was sixteen he was playing with the New Zealand Champions- The City of Wellington Pipe Band.

With the Band, he visited Scotland in 1975 and the following year came back to compete around the Games circuit for what he thought would be a couple of years.

Instead of returning home, Bruce joined the Black Watch Territorial Army as a Piper in 1977, and in 1978 he joined the regular army, enlisting into the Queens Own Highlanders, now The Highlanders.  The following year he won the Silver Medal at the Argyllshire Gathering.

In 1986 he became the battalion Pipe Major, a position he held for six years.  The last eight years of his military career was spent in the post of WO1 Pipe Major, the Senior Pipe Major, British Army and Chief Instructor at her Army School of Piping, The Castle, Edinburgh.  During this period he was actively involved annually with producing the Pipes and Drums for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo.  After completing his regular service Bruce was commissioned into the Territorial Army with responsibility for TA and Cadet piping.

He now spends much of his time teaching, judging competitions, and giving recitals in places as far afield as China, New Zealand, Germany, and the USA.  He balances that with running his online bagpipe business. www.highlandreeds.com

THE 2010 JUDGE  

(Pictured here with the Chief Constable holding the World Championship Trophy 1986, the sixth in a row for Strathclyde Police Pipe Band.)

Born in Clydebank on January 31, 1937, Ian had no piping background in his family and came to the pipes almost by accident. Following the bombing that devastated much of Clydebank during 1941, his family had moved out to a farm near Dumbarton. One day, when Ian was about nine, a friend of his father's, who was attached to the 214th Glasgow Company of the Boys Brigade, came to visit, showed Ian how to play the scale on a practice chanter and left the chanter and tutor book behind.

Intrigued, Ian duly practised, progressed to the pipes at age eleven and when his family moved back to Clydebank, despite the 214th being based in Whiteinch, Ian joined the company. This was to provide lan's first taste of success, as the 214th had a history of doing well in competitions and won the World Juvenile Pipe Band Championships three times.

After two years national service with the Argylis, where he studied the pipes with Andrew Pitkeithly, Ian joined the police in Glasgow and kept up his solo piping instruction under Ronald Lawrie as well as playing with the pipe band. As a soloist lan's big breakthrough came in 1965, when he won the March, Strathspey and Reel section at the Oban meeting. He went on to win the MSR at Oban again in 1968 and at Inverness in 1971 and won six MSR titles in the Uist and Barra Association competitions in Glasgow.

In 1972, Ian took over the leadership of the City of Glasgow Police Pipe Band, which with local government reorganisation in 1975 became the Strathclyde Police Pipe Band, drawing pipers from five adjoining forces. Ian quickly capitalised on this increased strength and with the discipline and organisation for which he would become famous, he fashioned the band into World Champions in 1976. He repeated this success in 1979 and then in 1981 began the run of six consecutive championships. In all, the band won twelve world titles while Ian was pipe major and in 1982 he was awarded the British Empire Medal for services to piping.

After retiring from the police in 1992, Ian concentrated on teaching and adjudicating, which he says has kept him busier than ever as both have taken him all over the world. Among his many students are Jonathan Greeniees, of the Field Marshall Montgomery Pipe Band, who won theDunvegan medal in 2008, and Gordon McCready, the Oban silver medallist and overall winner at Dunrobin Castle in 2004. As an adjudicator Ian has officiated at all the major Scottish meetings and in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S. and he now takes as much pleasure in listening to great piping and hearing new talent emerging as he did in playing andleading bands to the highest level.

THE 2009 JUDGE

We are pleased and honored to have Bob Worrall adjudicate the first ever Silver Cap Competition. His previous accomplishments and accreditations will be a contribution to the Silver Cap, and will help to place this competition as one of the premier solo competitions in the world.
 
Bob Worrall is one of North America’s leading teachers, adjudicators and performers. Bob is a respected composer, having published two collections of bagpipe music, and also having compositions in a large number of other collections. He is featured on three solo piping recordings and is a member of the folk group “Scantily Plaid”.

After a piping career with a number of Ontario’s leading pipe bands, including the City of Toronto Pipe Band and the General Motors Pipe Band, Bob retired from competitive piping in 1983. His solo accomplishments were extensive, both in North America and Scotland. He won the North American Professional Championship an unprecedented 7 times and the Ontario Professional Championship Supreme title for 12 of his 13 years in the professional class. He was also the 1977 winner of the March and Strathspey/Reel events in Inverness. He was a pupil of Bill Millar, Willie Connell and John Wilson.

A member of all North American and the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association’s judging panels, Bob has been selected to judge the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow on eleven occasions. For the last three years he has been the colour commentator for the BBC’s broadcast of the World Pipe Band Championships. He was added to the Piobaireachd Society’s Senior Judges list and in November, 2000, became the first non U.K. adjudicator to judge a major U.K. solo event when he was selected to adjudicate the Bratach Gorm in London, England. He has adjudicated the Macallan/MacCrimmon solo piping event in Brittany on ten occasions. He has adjudicated the New Zealand, Australian, and South African National Championships. He has also been a solo adjudicator at both the Cowal and Argyllshire Gatherings.

Bob was the senior instructor at the Gaelic College in Cape Breton for 15 years. Recently, he has been taking on a number of new summer school assignments, including Kingston, Ontario; Washington State; Vancouver Island; Uruguay; and, South Africa. He has also been a regular performer and adjudicator at the Lorient Celtic Festival in Brittany, France. His weekend workshops and recitals provide him with a schedule that has him booked months in advance and have taken him to virtually all of the Canadian provinces and 36 U.S. States.