Promenades, Pipes and Parades… - Slugger O'Toole

Imagine the setting – a partly forested mountain stretching down to the sea, kilt clad adults ambling about the promenade while their kilt clad children mob the ice cream trucks on an uncharacteristically sunny day.

No, this is not some Scottish Highlands shin-dig, rather it was the Heart of Down piping competition in Newcastle – a wonderful setting for what seemed to be an anonymous event as there was very little in the way of advertising or signage (and an old bloke in the pub with a strong Ulster Scots accent was completely unaware, I’d have thought him to be psychically attuned to such events…).