"Oggi" is one of our very recent guest members who is based in Norway. He now takes up his own story:

My interest for piping was awakened some time ago when I was just 15. My mother had a coffee party and I was allowed to watch the Edinburgh Military Tattoo on TV. As soon as I heard the pipers entering the arena, I thought: "Here are those Scots with those awful Bagpipes of theirs." I couldn't really hear any difference in the different tunes they played.

Then I thought:"Why not give them a chance; listen to it and see if you can find

any tunes in this". Then to my surprise I found the tune, and it was pretty nice, too!

This must have been in the autumn of 1971, and I started buying piping records. I didn't this too hard as Scottish records were extremely popular in Norway then.

I knew nothing about pipes at that time but my first Practice Chanter looked like a real beauty, and was bought at the House of Scotland who sold Scottish products from R.G.Lawrie at that time. My father lent me the money in spite of my mother's wish for me to take up the Norwegian Hardanger Fiddle instead of the pipes.

Mr. Terje Andersen, who at that time was the piper for The Caledonian Society of

Norway, gave me the first lessons based on the Piping Tutor of the College of Piping in Glasgow.

In 1979 I received some lessons at The College of Piping's Summer School, but as Piping in Norway tended to be a lonely existence, I gave up piping later that year. I had no friends who played the pipes, and I felt that I made no progress in piping in spite of all the hours spent on practicing.

In 1985 I visited Blair Atholl for the competition held there in October. This rekindled my interest so much that I started to visit the Scandinavian Pipe Band Championships every time they were held in Sweden.

In 1994 I started toying with the idea of a pipe band in Oslo. I posted the first ads in the Oslo newspapers, and received a response from three people. One of my new piping friends and myself appeared in an article of Aftenposten (The local newspaper in Oslo) in November the same year, and we received enormous response to this article of about 20 people wanted to help.

The first meeting of the band was held at the Dubliners' Pub in Oslo at the end

of December and the first practices were held at some premises of the Salvation

Army. This was the time when I took up the pipes again. We called the new band the

MacLeod Pipes & Drums, but I must admit it was not easy to teach others in what I

was not very good at myself. Later the same year we changed premises to a school in

My first teacher on this instrument, Mr Terje Andersen, took over as the musical

leader. One day a new man turned up, Robert Robertson, who had previously been a leader in the juvenile band in Boghall & Bathgate Caledonian Pipe Band. He took over as the new Pipe Major. Later again we changed premises and the name of our band was changed to the present name "Oslo Caledonian Pipe Band".

About 1997 I left the band in order to further my own skills and perhaps widen my solo skills.