The Worst Gala Day of All Time

Until this weekend, the very worst gala day of all time I'd attended was in a place called Black... something - a tiny village near Greengairs where we'd had a terrible experience. The parade started in one field, passed along a road then to another field, and although there was light rain when we started it rapidly got much heavier. By the time we reached the second field we were wading in mud, and the whole thing had to be abandoned.

Which was a shame, but which pales into insignificance with Saturday's event.

This event is the longest parade we do. The village in question doesn't have much to it - two housing estates separated by the main road - so the parade meets at one end, proceeds down the road and around the other estate, then back up the road and around the first, ending where it started up. It was a hot and sticky day, of the sort that one might mistakenly believe makes for a pleasant piping experience (but really, really doesn't).

But none of that was a problem.

We happened to be there in really good time, and were tuned and ready to go twenty minutes before the start time. And we were second in the parade, behind an ancient open-top "wedding" car, where every time it moved we enjoyed a miasma of fumes.

But none of that was the problem.

While we were waiting, the car would occasionally move forward a bit, and we were asked to move forward to close the gap. After a while, our Pipe Major got bored with this and decided to play a bit to pass the time. So we started - we played "Scotland the Brave" and the first half of "Rowan Tree". The rest of the parade, on hearing us starting, decided that it must be time to GO! This then prompted a panic from the police, and the event organisers, and it all went a bit haywire.

However, that all got sorted out. And we waited another ten minutes, and then it really was time to GO! So off we went - we played "Scotland the Brave" and the first half of "Rowan Tree", got to the top of the street where we were to turn right... and then it all came to a halt.

There was then a lot of frantic discussion, and a fairly long delay. Eventually, word came that we were rerouting the parade, and going to do the last bit first. So off we went. But because of the way the parade was set up, we kept leaving the back of the parade behind, and so had to keep stopping to let them catch up. Then, about two-thirds of the way around the estate, while we were engaged in one of these waits, the wedding car stalled. And the driver couldn't get it going again.

At length, they got some of the local youths to push the car, got it going again, and we completed that circuit. We got back to the top of the first street (where we were supposed to turn right), and then we stopped. And there was a really long delay.

And none of that was the problem. Frankly, the whole situation was very, very funny.

Until suddenly, it wasn't.

Because it turned out that the reason for all of the delays was that the Gala Queen's Mum had collapsed in the street and the paramedics were desperately trying to revive her. She didn't make it.

In the end we completed the parade. The people there very carefully didn't tell the Queen until such time as there was finally no avoiding it, on the grounds that there was nothing to be done, so they let her enjoy her day as much as she could for as long as she possibly could.

But it's fair to say that the second half of the parade was a very different experience to the first.