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IF these bagpipes could talk, they would tell a story of war, peace, love, travel and a family tradition. The MacKenzie family’s bagpipes turned 200 just a few weeks ago, but half a century ago they might have ended up as firewood. Scots School bandmaster Gill MacKenzie and his father play bagpipes, as have five generations of MacKenzie men before them. In fact, the family’s history of playing bagpipes dates back to the Victorian era. Gill’s father John is a descendant of John Ban MacKenzie, who was asked by Queen Victoria to be her personal piper. He was also offered a house, in Windsor Castle, in which he and his wife could live. John Ban declined the offer, however, and became known as “the man who said no to the queen”. It wasn’t until the 1960s, while living in New Zealand, that John found the historic bagpipes, purely by accident. “I taught Police Citizens’ Club Boystown Band and I put out a flyer that I was looking for sets of pipes for this band,” he said. Following his request, an old box was donated by a woman in her late 80s for the band. “The box was in bits ... it was all green; I couldn’t even see what was wood or silver or anything,” John said. “I took them home and didn’t do anything with them. “[Later] I just started mucking about, just cleaning it, and thought ‘what’s this, there’s writing here ... it says Waterloo’ and I thought ‘my God’.” The inscription, according to Gill, read: “D.Glenn 42nd Highlanders Waterloo.” While there was a pipemaker called D.Glenn around in 1815, Gill doesn’t believe these pipes were made by him. “D. Glenn, as far as we know, was just a name of a person who was at Waterloo,” Gill said. “There was a D. Glenn at Waterloo, but trying to find out exactly the ins and outs of that particular person has been quite difficult.” While they didn’t officially have pipe bands during the Battle of Waterloo, Gill said the pipes would have been played by someone there for music, rather than to fight. “I would imagine whoever had them at Waterloo took them back to the maker to have them inscribed,” he said. The pipes were restored and have been played ever since by John and Gill. “We’ve won a lot of solo contests with the pipes and we always get a lot of comments about the actual instrument – they’re noticeably different,” Gill said. “They’re made of African blackwood. An African blackwood tree has to grow for about a hundred years before they can harvest it and then they season it for another hundred years, so the wood in them is actually 400 years old. “There’s ivory on there that’s walrus tusk. You’re not allowed to put ivory on pipes anymore.” Gill said his father was lucky to have discovered the inscription on the pipes all those years ago as they were in such a terrible state of disrepair. “The bag was all dried up and hard and they were pretty much a bundle of firewood,” he said. A love of the pipes has been passed on to Gill’s children – Charles, 24, who plays for the Queensland Police Pipes and Drums, and Ellen, 22, who also plays. “It’s a passion. Bagpipes aren’t an instrument you’d do by halves, you throw yourself into it,” Gill said. “The actual bagpipes themselves were an inspiration – the history behind the pipes.” Gill took over from his father as the Scots School bandmaster in 2003 and took students to compete in the World Championships in Scotland in 2008. “The preparation to go over there and not make a complete monkey of yourself was immense. The kids went over there and played their hearts out,” he said. “We came ninth in our section .... that was a highlight, so far.”

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