WORLD FAMOUS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26233, 17 August 1946, Page 8

WORLD FAMOUS

DRUM-MAJOR DARWIN PIPE BAND CELEBRITY Drum-major William Darwin, of Melbourne, at present in Dunedin, is the world’s champion drum-major. In conversation with an Otago Daily Times reporter last night, he said he was travelling through the Dominion making preliminary arrangements for the goodwill visit of the Australian Highland Pipe Band. The band will be arriving in New Zealand about the first week in November and in the course of a Dominion tour will be in Dunedin about the third week of that month. Drum-major Darwin said that the band would be drawn from the best players in the Commonwealth, and would comprise 30 male members.

They would be accompanied by some of Australia’s most talented Highland dancers. There would also be another drum-major. The tour had been sponsored by a wealthy Victoria “ squatter,” and the band would be wearing the McKenzie tartan.

Features arranged for the band’s tour include a Mardi Gras wedding in each of the four main centres. Drum-major Darwin explained that upon the couple being selected, they would be married in the open air, with both pipe and brass bands present, and would be given a free honeymoon. He had seen many of these before, said Drum-major Darwin, and in Melbourne on one occasion applications had been received from 72 couples for selection. Colourful Career On his smart blue tunic, besides ribbons denoting active service in World War I and home service in World War 11, the drum-major wears two awards for bravery—one for a gallant act in Vancouver in 1922. when he rescued three women and a boy from a burning hotel, and the other for saving the life of a little girl in a small town in Queensland. He was leading a pipe band through the streets, when two horses harnessed to a dray bolted across in front of the band. As the girl dashed forward into the, horses’ path, Drum-major Darwin picked her up, and at the same time forced the horses into the side of the road, where they were captured.

It was 20 years ago as drum-major of the Australian Ladies’ Highland Pipe Band, which was on a world tour, that Drum-major Darwin visited New Zealand, and his associations with pipe bands have led him to all corners of the earth. In 1922 he was invited to New York to lead the Sousa massed bands on the occasion of July 4. He is a well-known figure in Australian Anzac Day and other public parades. Drum-major Darwin’s accomplishments are not limited to pipe bands, as is shown by the letters F.R.G.S. after his name. He is an author, and has just completed his third book.