I spent four happy years as a student at Edinburgh University, and as such have a certain fondness for the sound of the bagpipes.That being said I know that some people find the "skirl" of the pipes to be a tad "grating" on the ears. However, I find Nanny's recent attack on the bagpipes to be an overreaction to say the least.
Nanny's Army Medical Directorate environmental health team have issued a dictat to soldiers learning to play the bagpipes, telling them to limit their practice sessions to only 24 minutes a day, or 15 minutes when indoors.
Pipers will also have to wear ear plugs under the new dictat.
What do they say, I wonder, about soldiers fighting in Iraq and other places where guns, bombs and shells are banging and whizzing around?
Do they ask the combatants to limit their activities to 20 minutes a day?
Bagpipes have played a crucial role in Scottish regiments, which have traditionally been led into battle by kilted pipers for centuries.
Davy Garrett, who played the pipes in the Army for 12 years and now runs a piping school, said:
"This is just another example of the Nanny state
and one that I am very concerned could ruin the future of piping in Scotland."
Bill Lark, 85, a Black Watch piper who led his comrades into action against the Japanese in 1944, also thinks that the rules are bollocks:
"The pipes should be played loudly.
That's how they inspire soldiers and scare the enemy."
I feel suitably inspired to watch my copy of "Tunes of Glory" (starring Alec Guinness, John Mills and Gordon Jackson), I recommend you all do the same.
I bet my great uncle who was with the Black Watch during the first world war is spinning in his grave (or would be if he had not been cremated). Back then they were referred to by the enemy as the 'Devils in skirts' and the sight and sound of them walking (never running until the last moment when they would launch a terrifying, screaming bayonet attack according to my uncle) towards the enemy with the pipers playing would often cause utter fear amongst said enemy. I can see this latest edict from nanny causing any future or current enemy to refer to them as 'Jessies in dresses' as I am sure that the next step is to ban them from playing at all just in case it causes traumatic stress in opposing forces.
ReplyDeleteInstead of putting a 15 minute limit on how long one may practice bagpipes, I would much rather a 15 minute limit was placed upon politicians and the rest of Nanny's followers, supporters and trolls, including those jobsworths whose sole purpose in life seems to be to make it as miserable as possible for everyone else!
ReplyDeleteDoes the use of the bagpipes constitute 'Disproportinate Force'
ReplyDelete;-)