Scottish Women Will Help To Make Band Uniforms

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27999, 20 June 1956, Page 2

Scottish Women Will Help To Make Band Uniforms

“Women kilt-makers! Guid Sakes Alive,” said an octogenarian kiltmaker, who has been making kilts by hand since he was 14, and since he arrived in Australia recently has taken up his craft again in spite of his age. All the best kilts were hand-made, he said. He belongs to the old school of craftsmen who “built” kilts before they were mass-produced. In his youth, a good craftsman turned out one hand-made kilt a day. There were between 18 and 40 pleats in the back of a kilt, he said.

Today, many women are engaged in the kilt-making industry in Scotland and many of them will have a hand in making the new summer uniforms of the Caledonian Pipe Band. The new summer uniforms, which the band decided last week to buy, were a topic of conversation at the pipe band’s practice in the Caledonian Hall last evening.

The Caledonian Pipe Band is the only pipe band in the Southern Hemisphere affiliated to the Black Watch Regiment. Next summer, for the first time, the band will wear a summer uniform similar to that worn by the Elack Watch in the tropics. Drummers will wear the Black Watch tartan kilt, and pipers will wear the Royal Stewart tartan. With the kilt they will wear khaki shirts and long fawn hose. Leather sporrans, distinguished by the five black tassels of the Black Watch, will be worn instead of the hair sporrans, and navy Balmoral bonnets will replace the Glengarries. The leather brogues of the bandsmen will be made in New Zealand. Their uniforms will be made in Scotland. Last summer the Caledonian Pipe Eand played for many of the women’s marching teams, and they found their full-dress uniforms too hot for comfort. The cost of complete winter uniforms for the band is about £l9OO The band’s present winter uniforms '«’ere bought about six years ago. and the summer uniforms, which will each cost about £25, will prolong the life of the more expensive ones. Skilled Craft Kilt-making was one of the most skilled crafts, said the president of the Caledonian Society (Mr C. S. Thomau) yesterday. The cost of a

uniform was not high when one considered the material in it. When properly built, the pleats of a kilt should sit well and keep tight. They should not balloon out when the wearer danced.

Piper J. Steenson, who is making arrangements for a Scottish firm to build the kilts, said the cutting of the kilt was most important. A kilt could be made from six and a half to eight yards of material. He came from Belfast. but was of Scottish descent. He had seen the kilt-making in Scotland, and he knew that the kills, when they arrived for the band in a few months time, would fit properly. The secretary of the society (Mr J W. Paton) said the band made special efforts to defrav the cost of uniforms Pipe-Major K. J. Boyce said he thought two other bands in the North Island had summer uniforms, but they were not entitled to wear the uniform of the Black Watch Regiment. Women’s Pipe Band Pipe-Major Boyce has been tutor for more than six years to the Christchurch Ladies’ Pipe Band, of which his wife is custodian. Mrs Boyce is also of Scottish descent. She is a descendant of Mr Malcolm McKinnon, who came to Canterbury before the First Four Ships, and plou'hed the first land in Christchurch. This was where the Christchurch Public Hospital now stands. Members of the Christchurch Ladies’ Pipe Eand wore grey skirts and white blouses until they raised enough money to buy uniforms, said Mrs Boyce.

Mr T. A. Gordon, formerly drum major of the City of Christchurch Pipe Eand. who is now deputy-chairman of the New Zealand Pipe Bands’ Association. said the kilts for the members of the Christchurch Ladies’ Pipe Band had been made by a woman, Mrs L. Elder, of Invercargill. Mr Gordon’s wife, formerly Miss Helen Moffat, was lhe first drum major of the Christchurch Ladies’ Pipe Band. Mr and Mrs Gordon recently made spats for the Timaru Ladies’ Pipe Band. Most of the women’s pipe bands had kilts made in New Zealand, said Mr Gordon. There were two women's pipe hands in Christchurch, two in Dune- | din. one in Auckland, one in Wellington, and one in Timaru.