PROFILE
Photo: Michaela Bilobrk
by John Slavin All work and lots of playing CRAIG MUNRO OF WALLACE BAGPIPES T
HE word polypenco is widely used in the bagpipe world as the name for plas- tic pipes and chanters, but it is wrong.
Polypenco® is not a material, but a company name. An offshoot company of The Polymer Corpora- tion called Polypenco Glasgow was one of the first to develop plastic bagpipe parts such as mouthpieces and chanters. When Polypenco Glasgow closed down in 1994, two employees, Operations Manager Jim Wallace and Production Engineer David Hendry, set up Jet Engineering (Plastics) Ltd. With their previous experience making bagpipe parts they eventually set up Wallace Bagpipes in 2004 and started developing their products. One year later Craig Munro joined the com- pany to help develop, test and make the pipes. Skip forward seven years to 2012 and Craig is now the director and owner of Wallace Bagpipes. Craig’s piping career started in 1994 with Renfrew
and District Association Pipe Band under Colin Johnston, winning two Juvenile World titles with them while getting private lessons from Gordon Lawrie. When Gordon joined Shotts and Dykehead in 1998, Craig went along to their practices to gain experience listening to one of the best bands in the world before joining Shotts himself at the age of 16 in 2001. “In 2000, I was actually playing Robert Mathieson’s pipes during the tune-ups on competi- tion days,” explained Craig. “Robert was busy tuning the band so he needed someone to keep his pipes going and it was great training for me getting used to the playing style. I joined the following season and spent two great years with the band. “Compared to now there was nowhere near the same amount of young players in Grade 1 and I felt a wee bit out of place. There was a big age gap between myself and the next youngest player in the band and I eventually decided to leave the band, get more experience and just enjoy my playing without the pressure of ‘anything but first place is not good enough’.” Craig joined Dysart and Dundonald Pipe Band
in Grade 1 under Pipe Major Brian Lamond, which allowed him to stay within the top grade but with a band which had less pressure and expectations. Two years later, Craig joined the Clan Gregor Society
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Pipe Band in 2005 when they moved from Grade 2 to Grade 1. “The band had a lot of players from the Shotts band I played with in 2001/2002 and it was set up by George Shepherd and David Methven,” explained Craig. “The band only spent one year in Grade 2 before being promoted and I joined as I believed they were a band going on to big things. We went on to pick up prizes at the majors in 2005 and Clan Gregor are still one of a few bands who have won prizes in their first year in Grade 1. Boghall and Bathgate were the previous band to do it, and of course Inveraray have done it since and have been far more successful than any band in their first year in Grade 1. “My initial plan when leaving Shotts in 2002 was to go away, get some experience, and then go back and play with Shotts but an opportunity came up with the Clydebank Pipe Band in Grade 3A to take over as pipe major. I was keen to give it a go as I thought it would give me good experience, so I took over in April about six weeks before the start of the season. It was all quite rushed getting everything prepared but we had a great season finishing runners up in the champion of champions table plus win- ning various grade 2 competitions playing up at the minor competitions. “We were upgraded after my first season in charge to Grade 2 which was a difficult year and a hard
Craig Munro, front right, playing with Shotts and Dykehead in the final of the Worlds in 2010
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