Dear San Diego Scottish Highland Games,
Thank you so much for your generous donation toward my travel expenses to perform in the 2017 Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in Scotland. It was an extraordinary experience and you helped make that dream come true! The band I was a member of in the Tattoo was the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo’s very own pipe band, The Pipers Trail. Pipers and drummers were selected from around the world and brought together to form the Pipers Trail Pipe Band. Eight countries were represented in the band.
One of the highlights of my participating in the Tattoo was performing for HRH The Princess Royal, Princess Anne when she visited our rehearsals at the historic Redford Barracks outside of Glasgow. The Princess Royal is the Tattoo’s patron. I experienced my first three cheers for a Royal when we removed our hats and cheered hip, hip, hurrah for Princess Anne!
Another opportunity to perform for a Royal came when Prince Albert the II of Monaco was an honored guest at one of the Tattoo’s shows. At the end of the show’s finale, the prince in his box seat with spotlights on him gave the cast a salute. (That was very cool.)
Performing at Glasgow’s George Square as part of the Piping Live festivities was another desire of mine fulfilled. Piping Live is a music festival that runs the week prior to the World Pipe Band Championships. I had seen other pipe bands march and perform at George Square in pictures and video, so to actually be with a pipe band performing at the Square was a special moment for me.
Marching in the Tattoo with a massed bands of 150 members and a total cast of 700 was beyond amazing. At the first Tattoo show the site of the many pipe bands in their full dress uniforms at tour first show was stunning! The many different tartans, uniforms with glimmering gold and silver trim and braid, tall black feather bonnets, shiny buttons, bright white spats, and everything worn with pride was dazzling. The drum majors marching together carrying our maces, some dramatically engraved and ornate, was a beautiful site. And the breath taking view extending across the city of Edinburgh to the blue waters of the Firth of Forth, is a sight I will never forget. Each Tattoo show ended with the pipe bands marching down the Royal Mile to the waiting buses. Large crowds lined the street to watch and cheered the bands as we marched by.
These are just a few of the special moments I experienced while in Scotland. I kept a blog on Facebook, where I posted many pictures and videos while I was at the Tattoo. You can view the pictures on my page in the featured album Edinburgh Tattoo 2017 (located near the top of my page), and on my Twitter page. My social media accounts are all named Drum Major Shaw
Again thank you for your generous support. I can’t express my gratitude enough. I am very blessed to have friends like the San Diego Scottish Highland Games, and I could not have attended the Tattoo without your help. I have included high resolution pictures of myself in uniform and performing in the Tattoo as thank you gifts. You can download more pictures from my various sites.
With gratitude,
Mickie Shaw
Drum Major
Cameron Highlanders Pipe Band
San Diego, California
