The Lucknow Sentinel, 1983-06-29, Page 54Lucknow Sentinel, Wednesday, June 29, 1983—Page 2b
Donald Dinnie became the symbol of the Games
The Scottish athlete, Don-
ald Dinnie was chosen as the
symbol of the Lucknow 125th
anniversary, reminiscent of
the engraving which was
used to publicize the Caled-
onian Games which Lucknow
was famous for at the begin-
ning of the century.
Donald Dinnie, a champ-
ion athlete of Scotland, head-
lined the Caledonian Games
which were sponsored in
Lucknow for more than 20
years by the Caledonian
Society.
J. W. Bengough, a famous
cartoonist, designed the en -
graying to represent a Scot-
tish athlete competing at the
games from a woodcut and it
was first used in 1879. When
the big wooden slab, three
feet long, arrived at The
Sentinel office, James Bryan
then editor of the paper
remarked "When the Creat-
or was through fashioning
man, he picked up the
chunks and threw them
together in a haphazard way
to form the Hielan' man with
the bulging muscles.
The cut became a classic
Canadian poster to advertise
the games and the figure was
named Donald Dinnie for the for the older ones especially
famous athlete..the hielan' bred. From all
Fervor rah high torevive parts of the Dominion and
the Baines. in 1910 and> abroad came the brawny
cut Donald D� 'was << athletes who tossed the
wide used; t that 'time. caber, threw the hammer,
Several;. older rests of put: the shot or tugged on the
Lue now today i in a war of training
the hitt* ref i)OK9#cles What records were
Dinnie,:' j` ung in
the n n1tade broken in those
street store windows
ing the ga'tnes
Vancouver.:1Cnu�
McConnell • rttt
lowing report 191'
revival of the G tea
"What an event this;
were, for we youngsters am
And the highland danc-
J. P. ers, the sword dance, the
fol- reels, ;;the strathspeys and all
at. the the rest. Then there were the
pipe contests when men with
waving wk's - feathers in
the r bonnets and dressed in
gorgeous kilts, strode to and
fro the while they filled the
welkin with shrill wear music
of the heather purpled hills
of auld Scotland.
"But there came a time
when the interest waned and
The Games were dropped.
But in this year of grace
(1910) they are to be revived
in all their ancient splendor.
The skirling pipes will shriek
their challenge to the cedar
covered hills that border the
natural amphitheatre.
Crowds will come from far
and near, the sons and
daughters of old Scotland
thirsting for a taste of the life
of the heathered hills and the
eternal traditions. There will
be heard the rich glutteral
Gaelic unintelligible to any
man not possessed of a Celtic
soul.
"Over the white gravel
roads will travel the farmers
of Bruce and Huron not as in
old times in rumbling wag-
ons, but in top buggies and
democrats. There old
friends, separated by years
and a contingent in distance,
will meet and renew their old
time friendships."
Bagpipes have fascinated Lucknow man since childhood
Even in Scotland you'd
have a hard time to find a
place more Scottish than
Lucknow.
But even in Lucknow you
won't find anyone more
fiercely Scottish than Wilfred
McQuillan.
The village's official sym-
bol is a kilt -clad Scot, bare to
the waist, and in the act of
"putting the shot".
The cap badge worn for
generations by the village
pipe band bears the motto
"We Fear Nae Foe" and
even the traffic warnings
here have a Scottish flavour.
They admonish visitors to
"Drive Canny".
The village telephone dir-
ectory is filled with Scottish
names and the village history
is filled with stories about
Scottish pipers, Scottish ath-
letes and Scottish games.
McQuillan is the living
embodiment and probably
the last hold out of the
generation that built this
community.
Now 83, he has been a
piper since he was 15, and
has spent most of his life as
the Canadian agent for one of
Scotland's best known manu-
facturers of bagpipes, James
Robertson of Edinburgh.
If you drive slowly past his
West Wawanosh farm home
at the right time of day, you
can still catch the wailing
notes of a march or a strath-
spey rising and falling on the
breeze as McQuillan goes
through his regular practice.
Although he has never set
foot on Scottish soil, he's the
closest thing to a profes-
sional Scotsman you will find
around here.
At national census taking
time he always lists himself
as a farmer, but throughout
his life he has divided his
time between farming and
promoting his Scottish past-
imes.
Over the past 10 years he
has allowed his bagpipe busi-
ness to lapse, but for more
than 40 years as a bagpipe
agent he sold hundreds of
CONGRATULATIONS
TO
LUCKNOW
ON YOUR
125TH ANNIVERSARY
Bruce Burger Drive In
960 Queen St., Kincardine 396-4233
CONORATU LATIONS
TO OUR NEIGHBOURS IN
LUCKNOW
McKee Jewellry & Gifts
760 Queen,
in downtown Kincardine
396-2515
sets to pipe bands from
British Columbia. to Nova
Scotia.
A principal sideline was
the manufacture of replace-
ment windbags for the in-
struments. He made them in
his farm house kitchen out. of
"good quality goatskin" he
bought from a Barrie tan-
nery.
"As far as our farming
went, we made enough just
to scrape by, but by selling
the pipes we increased that
to a comfortable living."
At one point McQuillan
designed a practice chanter
and had it manufactured in
Pakistan. He then sold it in
lots as Targe as two dozen at a
time to pipe bands.
When he was not selling
instruments or making bags,
McQuillan was making spor-
rans (also out of goatskin) or
Highland dirks and daggers
with deer horn handles,
which he sold to pipers to
wear with their Highland
attire.
McQuillan says he first
caught the piping fever as a
boy by listening to the
playing of a piper who lived
on a neighbouring farm.
"Then one year we went to
Wingham on the 12th of .July
and 1 heard a real pipe band
from Kincardine. That was
it. 1 determined 1 was going
to be a piper, so when I was
15 my dad bought me a set of
pipes."
McQuillan says he learned
his first few tunes on his own
from just what he had heard
by listening to and watching
other pipers.
For him, Scottish dress is
almost a fetish. Throughout
most of his life he has
refused to wear any kind of
headgear except a balmoral.
He has half a dozen around
his house. The older ones he
wears to work around the
farm to do the chores.
He was worn out, or is still
wearing, a total of five kilts.
"When 1 really want to dress
up, it's always the kilt • 1
Turn to page 4b•
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125TH
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