If you could have something named after you, what would it be?
It is unlikely I would have anything named after me but in the event that I could, maybe a charity or a school would be preferable over a city tower or a ship. Pipe dreams. These are merely external artifices, albeit symbols for humanitarian causes. But why the grand gestures? It’s the human connection that counts. At least it does for me. Simple is often the way and you can help anyone in need. And this isn’t hard to understand because quite often children show it and demonstrate it. Does getting older make you more circumspect? Does it make you wiser? I guess I’d like to be remembered for ‘me’ whatever that entails while any legacy is increasingly unlikely. ‘He came, he went and one nanosecond later is forgotten’ Or Percy Shelley.. My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?
I could choose to be rich. Having a couple of million bucks wouldn’t be so bad would it? Maybe shove some in a safe if needs be, just in case you need to access a stash. Hey, there’s nothing like instant gratification on a limitless basis. You’re in the money. You’ve won the lotto. Wahhhh, yeahhh!! Stick the bills, they suck anyway!
Go book a holiday. Maybe a cruise somewhere. That should be fun. But where? Maybe I’ll think about it later. Mmm, and with all this moolah I can settle my debts and fix numerous pending issues. But they’re not important anymore because I can pay them out – pay anyone out. Yippee!
Yes, I have a conscience. Why should I feel guilty (sitting around while everyone’s working away)? I can surely help my immediate loved ones and give them something. Be charitable. Hey, plenty to go around. Then again, I should count it up or get a finance adviser or some such. Bonds and securities – that sort of thing. Diverse portfolio. Invest and offset the tax. Yep, they’ll tell me what to do. Why worry about it? It’s just money and with enough of it the compound interest is incredible. Wowwwwwww!! Like a bloody mushrooming cloud. Booooommm!I wish..
I could list my pet peeves but I hesitate to reveal too much of myself in the process. Or is it really to do with offending others? Then again, what does it hurt to come clean once in a while. But why complain at all? Better to take action. Besides, people have enough problems then to hear about mine. I’d like to think I’ve matured and become more tolerant, that one day I will shed my former intolerant self and become truly enlightened. But maybe I’m dreaming (probably). Oh, I have my complaints and they are many – thieving, blackmailing, torturing, embezzling, laundering, deceiving, stampeding, poisoning, cannibalism, nihilism, cultism, sadism, pessimism, extortion, perversion, intoxication, brutalism, contamination, algorithms, death by asphyxiation, telemarketing, trafficking, shop lifting, parole violating, pyramid selling, stalking, forging, roadkill collecting, racketeering, mobile throwing, all forms of provoking..
Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.
Turning the clock back and then turning it some more, like flicking through the yellowing pages of an old book, I remember someone who had a big influence on me. What I’m about to recall is still vividly etched in my mind as if it happened yesterday.
I can picture it now. I must be fourteen or fifteen and it’s just another day at school, just another class but this time they tell us to assemble in the school lecture theatre. So we all go over there and yes, we see it’s an opportunity to relax and ‘slack off’ shall we say. School is something that doesn’t figure much in my life. Apart from a couple of friends I find it a drag.
One of them, who happens to be seated next to me explains that we have to choose an extra curricular activity. I’m so zoned out I haven’t even registered. He’s decided piping – (that’s highland piping for God’s sake). Next he tells me I should sign up so I reluctantly put my name down. I find myself in this weird roundhouse at the side of the classrooms feeling shunted out and slightly neglected.
The teacher is this older guy who I vaguely see around the school but again, I haven’t registered. He is quietly spoken and modest. He gives me a single wooden pipe – known as a practice chanter so I can learn ‘the tunes’. I take the thing home and forget about it until the next lesson. I’m supposed to practice but arrive for the session unprepared and discover my friend has done the homework. Oh, I have to learn some notes on this instrument and locate them on the score in front of me. What a drag. Er, G, um C or is it? No, it’s A. Right (I’m not interested). And the teacher, Ernie Dowler probably notices, but nonetheless shows patience and enthusiasm.
Now, I’m supposed to be a music kid coming from a music family. But somehow this guy – this teacher is different. So I put in some practice for the next lesson and think nothing more of it. Ernie Dowler has a concrete mixer and tools in the roundhouse. There are boxes of stuff – what look like kilts and equipment all around. The place is relaxed – so not a classroom. He tells us (only two of us have turned up) that he’s going to demo out ‘the tune’ and so he pulls out his set of pipes. What follows is so profoundly effecting and impactual it marks a seismic shift that forever changes my life. It isn’t so much the volume levels (you can imagine within a confined concrete space) but the way he plays. A faultless rendition that is seamless and appears effortless with a level of expression that is transformative. I am transfixed. From a somnolent state to fully galvanised attention all in the space of two minutes flat. In that moment I understand what it means, what he means, to be real. Not merely to get away with stuff – there’s plenty of that going on next door in the classrooms. They teach what you need to know to pass exams and how to ‘get on’ in life. Here it’s how to be real and how to be hands on.
In the months and years that follow I hang out in the roundhouse. It becomes a home from home. School becomes interesting and enjoyable. I discover Ernie Dowler’s backstory, from his time in the navy and as a champion pibroch player. He teaches me to pipe solo at school assemblies, weddings, and public events and I will go on to study at the Conservatorium. I doubt this would have happened without his influence.
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