The nostalgic sound of pipes and drums

I have just returned to the UK after yet another wonderful holiday in Malta, which my wife and I have visited for many years.

As usual on the Sunday we made our way to the Valletta market. And, once again we were crossing the bus terminus to catch another to the fishing village with its own market, which neither can I spell nor pronounce - but is does have Duncan's Restaurant. Could one of my ancestors have been shipwrecked there?

That was when we heard the sound of pipes and drums. The bus stops had been rearranged to allow a parade of scouts and guides to pass through into the main city.

Here were we on Malta's St George's Day parade, both ex-pat Scots, now living in England, hearing the sound of the pipes and drums.

Round the corner came hundreds of proud scouts and guides, representing almost every village and town in Malta and Gozo, stepping out with shirts ironed, badges of achievement stitched down their arms.

Tears came to my eyes, because 60 years ago I too was a scout in the Highlands of Scotland.

And the sounds of the pipes and drums made it all the more memorable.

The next morning The Times carried pictures of the St George's Day parade. Maybe it is that today's reporters are getting younger and are unaware of the part the pipes and drums have played in history. The older generation may recall when this marvellous island was in the throes of being invaded in the early 1940s, when its people stood fast and held off.

During those times pipers and drummers from Scottish regiments played to lift the hearts of their hosts, brave men and women.

So with these memories I cannot understand why the report of the St George's Day parade of last Monday referred to the "blare" of the pipes and the "bangs" of the drums.

This was demeaning of the hundreds of scouts and guides who attended that parade.

Being able to play the bagpipes takes hundreds of hours of practice, starting off with a chanter, progressing to training bagpipes, learning skilful triple fingering of the chanter, tuning your drones, etc.

Likewise, drummers do not "bang" their instruments. They may beat them, stroke them, coddle them and strum them, but never bang them.

Maybe the reporter that day arrived on the job on a Maltese bus which has that irritating blaring noise from its horns and bangs its ancient chassis on this country's unfinished roads.

Finally, it is a pity the seafronts are losing their traditional architecture, but the City of London is still there with Julian Borg at the helm, much the same as it was in the 1930s.