48 years on, R.S. MacDonald celebrates the great “Abercairney Tom” once again with “Abercairney Tom”

Rarer still is when a synonymous tune results not only in a nickname, but is commemorated with a tune by a world-class composer

Tom Speirs of Edinburgh is one of history’s great solo pipers. From the early 1970s to the late 1980s, he won many coveted prizes, including the 1980 Highland Society of London Gold Medal and the 1983 Clasp at the Northern Meeting.

While he was perhaps best known for his piobaireachd prowess, he was equally accomplished in light music, winning top events at both Oban and Inverness, and consistently winning around the Scottish games at a time when nearly every elite piper competed each weekend of the summer.

Tom Speirs enjoyed great success with “The Abercairney Highlanders,” the difficult 2/4 march with so many musical twists, turns, and traps that Pipe-Major Angus MacDonald called it “the piper’s graveyard.” For more than a decade, the tune was selected for Speirs almost everywhere he went.

In the 1970s, Roddy “R.S.” MacDonald emerged as a gifted young piper, starting to make a name for himself as a composer, an art for which he is now considered one of the all-time greats. Back then, MacDonald travelled the games circuit with Walter Cowan, Colin Drummond, Jimmy Hood, Jimmie MacGregor and Tom Speirs.

“I feel that I’ve known Tom for most of my life, but I got pretty close to him in the 1970s when I was competing,” MacDonald said. “He and the late Colin Drummond used to travel to the Highland games together, and they kindly gave me a lift a few times. As was common then, and probably still is, most players submitted the same four or six 2/4 marches to the judges. For some reason, Tom used to get ‘The Abercairney Highlanders’ picked for him at what I perceived to be a higher rate than any of the other tunes he submitted. This became the subject of some teasing between him and a small group of us.”

Well-liked people get affectionate nicknames, and the all-round good bloke Tom Speirs eventually became warmly known as “Abercairney Tom” – a moniker that’s stayed with him ever since.

And, of course, in 1978 the nickname led to MacDonald composing a four-part jig titled “Abercairney Tom.”

This summer, R.S. MacDonald travelled from his home in Japan to Scotland to work on a new collection of piobaireachd and light music. He thoughtfully paid a visit to Tom Speirs at his home in Edinburgh to present him with a framed copy of “Abercairney Tom”

“Roddy has been a friend for more years than I’d care to remember, so it was lovely to see him again and to reminisce about the fun we had travelling round the games,” Speirs said. “I had a lot of success with ‘The Abercairney Highlanders,’ playing a setting I got from Jim Jeffray, who was my first teacher. It’s always meant a lot to me that a composer with Roddy’s talents would name a tune for me. The signed copy of the tune now has a special place on the wall in my piping room at home.”

With R.S. MacDonald’s permission, we are pleased to share a copy of his jig, “Abercairney Tom,” a creative homage to one of piping’s greats, who not only earned an affectionate nickname for a synonymous tune, but also inspired a composition by one of piping’s eminent composers.

Thanks to R.S. MacDonald, Iain Speirs, and Tom Speirs for their help with this story.