I Belong to Glasgow in the Month of August

Photos by Linda Seccaspina

There is nothing that makes me weep more than the strains of bagpipe music in the air. My late father introduced me to highland music when I was still in diapers. Every Sunday morning “the Scottish Lion” would be crouched down with his ear inches away from the old HiFi listening to bagpipe music at a death defying volume. Through the years he attended every Pipes and Drums Tattoo that came to Montreal without fail.

At age six I was given a Scottish Tartan hat with a black ribbon trailing down my back and I wore it until the fabric became worn and the tartan unrecognizable. Even though we were of British descent the veins of a Scotsman lived in my father’s heart until he died. Because of his love of bagpipes, I try and attend The Highland Games in Almonte, Ontario each year. I long to hear the pipers and watch the young lasses perform their Highland Flings. In my dreams I am the one on stage dancing between the swords with black leather ghilley’s on my feet.

All it takes is one song to live a 1000 memories. Each year when I watch the massed bands march across the Almonte Fairgrounds I relive my youth once more. A life where even though my father and I had differences we shared the love of the bagpipes. I don’t know what it is, but when words fail bagpipe music speaks

” Alba gu brath!” Which means: “Scotland Forever”;

British by birth, Scotland by heart and forever a Highlander in song. What would life be without a little bagpipe?