Lone piper prepares a swansong

We are talking about Major Gavin Stoddart MBE, BEM, Director of the Army School of Bagpipe Music and Drumming at Redford Barracks. The name may not ring an instant bell but you’ve probably heard him.

And he has been seen by millions round the world. The television audience for the Tattoo have known him as the Lone Piper spotlighted on the Castle battlements and BBC viewers have also seen him on Hogmanay.

This will be his 20th and final Tattoo before he retires from the army in July next year at 55 and just in time he has received his best commission.

For there is no doubt that the Queen’s morale, if it happens to need it through lack of street parties, will be boosted considerably on August 5, the night she graces the Tattoo. And her Majesty should have no worries, there is no way she will be subjected to a dirge, or a lament. Unabashed monarchist Stoddart was instructed to write a happy tune.

"Brigadier Mel Jameson was for pushing the boat out, so to speak. He wanted something upbeat - a strathspey, reel or jig - and I plumped for a jig at a brisk, stirring tempo," he says. "But there was a constraint, in that the piece would last little more than a minute.

"Some people are natural composers. I don’t regard myself as a natural. I wait till a musical phrase comes into my head and in this case, when I found myself with five minutes to spare before going into a lecture, I put it down on paper, took it home and developed it in four measures.

"Next day I changed it, totally, and it took me three days overall to complete the job. Maybe I’m over-simplifying things, considering that the tune had to be original and it had to be playable for massed pipes and drums. So in itself it had to be reasonably simple. Sounds odd, perhaps, but it can be hard to write a simple tune."

He adds: "It will be premiered on the big night at the Tattoo and I’ve been told it will be included in the music programmed for the Queen’s summer garden party at Balmoral - huge thrill for me because I’m a staunch supporter of the royal family."

An original tune, of course, means that Stoddart will be in line for composer’s royalties. But it’s unlikely he will become the wealthiest piper in the army, with fat cheques stuffed into his letterbox every so often.

With a wry chuckle he explains: "It’s not quite the same as the deals the likes of Paul McCartney or Elton John enjoy. I’ve written other tunes, for instance The Return of the Stone in 1997 when the Stone of Destiny was brought back from England, and a tune that’s often played at the Tattoo named after Major Brian Leishman MBE, a former long-serving business manager of the event.

"And I wrote The Ladies of the Alamo for the Royal Highland Fusiliers. Not that there were any ladies at the actual battle, as far as I know. It was dedicated to a group of women in San Antonio, Texas, in the 1920s who banded together to have the site of the Alamo preserved.

"The one and only tune of any real, monetary significance in the royalty sense is one I wrote when I was 15 and still at school in Edinburgh at Firrhill Secondary. I did that for an Edinburgh policeman and somehow it found its way into pipe bands’ standard repertoire and it was also featured in the film, Chariots of Fire."

He had already been playing the pipes for ten years when he wrote that tune, but then piping was in the family.

"My dad, a Leither, was the original Lone Piper from 1949-59. He joined the Cameron Highlanders in 1926, when he was 14 and transferred to the Airborne Division during the Second World War and he was pipe major with the Lowland Brigade while I was growing up," he says, fondly recalling the man who was determined his son would keep it in the family.

"He always had pupils in the house. Pipe music was bouncing off the walls and I couldn’t help but be influenced by the sounds around me. I suppose I started playing the pipes from the age of five.

"Father saw a fair bit of action, particularly with the Airborne, but maybe not quite the stuff a lot of people would imagine.

"The days of whole sections of pipers marching out front, leading troops into battle El Alamein-style are long over.

"That’s been banned, although the pipes were used, albeit on a much smaller scale, in the Gulf War where they were acknowledged as a formidable morale-booster."

He adds: "I joined up as a piper and to end up as a director. . . well, it’s a great honour at this stage to be hopefully improving standards on the instruments," he says. "The Army has a lot to offer young lads who want to be pipers or drummers."

Which is why he’s not so thrilled that there are plans by Brussels to muffle the bagpipes.

"Personally I’d be sympathetic towards a campaign to have that idea reversed," he says. "There are, of course, noise problems and the MoD, aware of the problems in practising indoors, want to introduce suitable ear defenders that would allow musicians - not only pipers but brass players too - to perform indoors and hear their instruments without adverse effects.

"Some top competitive civilian pipers already use earplugs, similar to those you’d maybe wear when you’re flying. I’ve never used them.

"But we’ve had over 300 pipers and drummers on the Esplanade at once and Tattoo audiences seem happy with anything thrown at them volume-wise. If you muffled the pipes at all, you wouldn’t hear the true sound."

While Stoddart has no set plans beyond retirement, he won’t bundle his pipes away in the attic. Somebody of his ability, and with so many connections, won’t be sitting with his feet up.

Meantime, the school remains his pride and joy. "We take up to 59 students for piping and drumming courses at any one time. We work closely with the National Piping Centre in Glasgow and between us we hope to introduce a degree course."

Stoddart laughs when he hears the hoary old allegation that the pipes sound wonderful in the distance, the further away the better. "They are an outdoor instrument and I agree they are an acquired taste, but normally when you hear somebody knocking the pipes it’s because they’ve had a bad experience listening to a bad piper."

He adds: "I’ve never forgotten my father telling me that the bagpipes are very temperamental but if you treat them like a lady, they won’t let you down."