Bio

I was born on 20th March 1984, in Insch War Memorial Hospital, which is about 30 miles from Aberdeen in North-East Scotland. I've always lived in the local area - first in the bigger town of Inverurie, a short spell with our grandparents in Whiteford while dad built our house, and since 1989 near the tiny village of Oyne. And so me, mum Linda, dad Bob and wee sis Nicole have lived here ever since.

School was a 2 minute car journey away, in the single classroom Oyne Primary School, with a maximum attendance of about 35 during my time there - it's now up around the 50 mark. It was a major culture shock moving from there to Inverurie Academy, where I jumped to having 30 pupils in my class alone! It was during a week long work experience trip to Vetco Gray in Aberdeen - mainly to study the Engineering department - that I was caught by the Computing bug. Next I moved to Aberdeen's Robert Gordon University to study BSc(Hons) Computer Science. As part of my course I spent a great year on placement at TOTAL E&P UK Plc, working with a great team of people in the I.S. department.

I graduated in summer 2007 with a First Class Honours Degree. I'm currently working with Skibo Technology, an IT support firm in Aberdeen. Mostly in a support role, but also doing a bit of SharePoint.

At the age of 8 I began learning the snare drum with Roddy McDonald at Bucksburn & District Pipe Band. I guess it was fate really, there's photos of me with a drum aged about 2 or 3 years. Three years of sweat and tears later (why is the 3rd part of the Massed Bands 6/8 so hard?) I made it into the Novice/Juvenile band. Rising from the ashes of the previous year's Champion of Champions band, we rose from last place at our first comp, to become World Champions, and Champion of Champions by 1997. By the next year I'd joined the Senior band in Grade 2, and picked up a number of titles including both Band and Drum Corps Champion of Champions, before promotion to Grade 1, and although we never embarassed ourselves, we dropped back to Grade 2 for 2005.

Since 1997 I've been heavily involved in teaching the Junior Band at Bucksburn. Since around 2000 I've been in charge of the corps, writing and teaching the snare, tenor and bass parts. I've found this just as enjoyable - if not more so - than playing myself. I've written a couple of booklets for learning snare and tenor - the snare booklet is now in it's 3rd revision, and is available to anyone who wants a copy, just ask!

From teaching I've run a number of workshops for bands around the North-East - again, just ask!! I've also taught at the Gordon Gaitherin, a music and drama week long event held in Kemnay for school kids to learn traditional arts with a bit of fun.

While at Inverurie Academy I played in a Folk Band called "Celtacad" that we created, and which played at a number of small ceilidhs and charity events, before hitting the big time with the Aberdeen International Youth Festival, and the amazing invite to play at HRH Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee Celebrations at Balmoral Castle. Celtacad stemmed the beginnings of my now considerable collection of drums, with first a set of Congas, and then a Tama Drum Kit taking pride of place in my room...and that was just the beginning. See the Drums page for more!

In 2007 I jumped across town to play for Grampian Police, working with Nicky Gibson, certainly the best drummer I've ever played with. Also means we can head off up the hills to figure out drum plans as we go. We're also about to start teaching Pipe Band drumming in Aberdeen schools.

In Pipe Bands I am highly influenced by Jim Kilpatrick's Shotts Drum Corps, Drew Duthart at 78th Fraser Highlanders (along with the legacy of his dad Alex's scores) the visual interpretation and pure enthusiasm of Tyler Fry, and in a wider range, the Top Secret Swiss Drum Corps, the Dhol Foundation and many drum and folk groups across the world. Through the band I have travelled around the world, visiting Taiwan, Spain, Germany and Holland, with great memories of these trips.

When I'm not drumming, getting ready to drum, or teaching drums, I'm probably out walking or skiing. I'm slowly attempting to climb the list of Scotland's 3,000 foot plus mountains - The Munros. Being a bit of a fair weather climber, it's going to take a while with Scotland's unpredicatable weather! The worst day on the hills has to be when Fergus and I got a bit distracted in the cloud, and ended up down the wrong side of Ben MacDui, the 2nd highest hill in Scotland, and had to climb it again, returning back to the car just half an hour before the Mountain Rescue team was called out. While global warming makes it less easy to get that white xmas we all want, I've been lucky that since I've started skiing again since 2005 there's been good skiing seasons lasting through until Easter. I've been a regular visitor to the Glen Shee ski centre.

I can't live without music and books. I'll listen to anything from folk to classic rock to jazz to world music, definitely taking a detour way around disco-beats, see what I'm listening to on the Music page. There's always a book next to my bed, I'm a huge fan of Ian Rankin's Rebus series of books about an Edinburgh based cop. I also like to get into books about travel, and would list Michael Palin's Himalaya and Ewan McGregor / Charley Boorman's Long Way Round as my favourites.

I'm useless at keeping in touch with everyone, so please drop me a line and let me know how you're doing.