The latest accession to The Scots Museum is a mannequin, dressed in what is undoubtedly the most elaborate uniform ever worn by The Scots School Pipes and Drums. It was timely that it went on display for the weekend of the Highland Festival.
In a history of the earliest years of the pipes and drums, Tim Hector recalled a nearly comical search in 1957 for items of uniform for the band. The Drum Major’s baton was a decorated broomstick! Because the band in 1957 was part of the Cadet Unit, it wore an army uniform of Blackwatch kilt – from a number donated to The Scots School in 1954 by the 30th Battalion, University of Sydney Regiment, a white shirt, school tie and khaki battle jackets.
Around 1967-1968, legendary bandmaster Bill Durham designed a new uniform for the band. He proposed a bottle-green jacket, but when the order was placed, it was for a red jacket. The oral history version that has been handed down is that Michael Aikman, who was the Headmaster at the time, wanted to do away with the Pipe Band and replace it with a marching band. The red jackets were designed to be repurposed for a marching band, with the kilts replaced by black trousers. In the event, it turned out that most of the proposed members of the marching band were also pipers and drummers, and their loyalties remained Scottish, and Michael Aikman moved on. The band began wearing the red jacket after it won the Australian Pipe Band Championships in Adelaide in 1968. It was part of the band uniform for thirty-five years. It was a Scottish Battle Dress uniform, with a feather bonnet, a red jacket and various buckles and sashes.
The uniform was unquestionably very good-looking. However, there were drawbacks. It was very uncomfortable in hot weather. The red dye in the jackets ran if they got wet, and after 35 years, it was wearing out. Gill Mackenzie reports that when he took over the band in 2003, he had seventy-four red jackets, but most of them had holes in them. The House Matrons and an army of mothers led by Kyn Banham spent hours with sewing machines keeping them together. Replacement costs were very high. The Blackwatch kilts were also showing their age.
The wider pipes and drums community was moving towards a cheaper, less formal style that looked good, but was easier to maintain. Initially, as photographs of the Scots band from the early 2000s show, they wore short-sleeved order (khaki cadet shirts). They were soon in white shirts with waistcoats, and by 2005, they had black jackets. In 2007, they appeared with a new kilt in Mackenzie tartan.
Recently, Mr Mackenzie was able to procure a mannequin and find a red uniform in good enough condition to display. It includes a sash that dates from the 1950s when TSS was Scots School Bathurst. Betty Ives found this in her archives some years ago, and it was worn by the Scots Drum Major.
A tangential but interesting story with the red jackets was recounted to a few old Scots staff by Howard Davoll. A roll of cloth from which the red jackets were cut hung around Scots for a few years after the uniforms were introduced. At the time that The Marsden School was closed, All Saints’ College were designing a blazer for their girls’ uniform. According to Howard, the cloth was sold to All Saints, and Howard was given the task of delivering it across the city to the seamstresses who were making the new uniform.
Mr Andrew Maher
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