Hamish Menzies (1934 – 2020)
Various contributors
B&F – July 2020
By Jack Delaney
Hamish was born in Callander in 1934 and lived there all his life. He was a postie there, and in 1972 he became Postmaster. Everyone liked Hamish and loved to chat with him or just pass the time of day. I understand a street will be named in his honour as a tribute to the high esteem in which he was held by the local community.
Hamish started to play the violin in his early teens having been taught by a local lady violin teacher. He first played in public at a Callander WRI meeting. Neither his mum nor his dad played but both loved music.
I first met Hamish in 1957 when I was asked by Callander bandleader, Arthur Easson, to give my opinion on a fiddle player who was coming to discuss joining The Glengarry Band. This very popular band consisted on Stuart MacPherson on accordion, the one and only Bill Black on fiddle, Martin Reid on piano and Arthur on drums. Arthur was about to lose Bill who was moving to Perthshire to work on another farm. Hamish, the local postie, got the job and we became firm friends. Some years later Arthur was invited to join The Ian Powrie Band and Hamish took over the running of the band.
Hamish formed his own band in 1960 comprising Jimmy Scott on piano, Stan Saunders on bass, drummer Bert Leishman, Dochie McCallum on 3-row and myself, Jack Delaney, on lead box. He married my niece Marion in 1962. Band practices were held at his mum and dad’s house in Esher Crescent in Callander where we were always made welcome. The personnel changed from time to time but the front line was unchanged throughout which kept the sound fairly consistent.
Over the years we had :
Stan Saunders, John Buchanan, Robert ‘Andy’ Anderson, Brian Mitchell and Tommy McTague on bass.
Blythe Lindsay and occasionally Hamish Reid on second box.
Bert Leishman and Gus Millar on drums.
And on piano Jim Scott, Walter Sinton, Andrew Dobson and Graeme Burns. Graeme also joined the band on fiddle when Hamish was doing the Christmas mail and, on one occasion, when Hamish injured his finger in a letter box.
Jim Scott and Stan Saunders left to join the Jimmy Shand Band. John Buchanan moved to south Africa and Walter Sinton went to Australia. Gus Millar joined the band in 1963 and remained till the band finished in 1972.
We travelled all over Scotland and parts of England playing at old time and country dances. Hamish and I would share the driving with Dochie sitting between us. These trips were all part of the fun and Hamish was a good driver and great company on the long journeys.
It was on one such tour that the one and only Billy Thom came with us to play drums. He and Dochie became good friends and often teamed up. On one occasion, while Hamish and I went to look at boats, they came along and went to Kyle of Lochalsh to buy presents to take home. On the way into a shop Dochie accidentally caught a large stand which displayed a huge variety of shoe and boot laces. The whole thing landed on the floor and there were laces scattered all over the shop. The assistants were helpless with laughter and they all crawled about the floor picking them up. Billy told Hamish that he had never been so embarrassed in his life.
During the later days of the band Gus provided the transport with his long-wheeled Bedford Dormobile, which actually had a heater which worked and also had a bit more leg-room in the back. This was indeed luxurious travelling. We played at a Christmas Eve dance at Crianlarich one year and left to go home around midnight. Shortly after leaving I noticed that the van was swinging a bit at the back and pointed this out to Gus. We had a flat nearside rear tyre and when changed it was found that the spare was flat too. Gus assured us that there wasn’t a problem as he had a second spare. Unfortunately, that one had the wrong wheel centres. Unfazed, Hamish managed to get a lift to Lix Toll Garage where he persuaded the owner to take him to Callander to collect a spare from his own Bedford. I think we got home to Alloa about 6am that Christmas Day.
We did the first of our 26 broadcasts in February 1962. These were all live and never without the odd slip. Once we arrived at Studio 1 in Edinburgh to find neither a producer nor an engineer. The only person there was a trainee engineer who was a bit unsure of the procedure. Thanks to Hamish’s unflappable nature we all coped and the listeners were none the wiser.
It’s perhaps as well Hamish was as calm as he was. Once in Dalmally village Hall we arrived to find a damaged piano with the action hanging out making it unplayable. With Hamish at one end of the piano, I took off my braces and stretched them across the hammers to keep them in place, then attached the other end to make it playable. Younger band members have since often dismissed it as a tall tale but it can be corroborated by Jake MacKay from Inveraray!
Instrumental mishaps weren’t a common feature of band jobs with Hamish but there was one more incident which he would retell on occasion. We went to Dundee to do a broadcast from the studio above the library. I had devised a system where the bass was slung inside the van under the roof and this seemed to work well until that day. As we were releasing the front strap the bass fell onto the seat and broke its neck. Needless to say, this was the last time we rigged up the van in such a fashion! Fortunately, local bandleader Ron Kerr of the Cameron Kerr Band was there and he went home to borrow his brother’s double bass for us.
We had many wonderful experiences playing in the band. We were delighted to be invited to play with a second band at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh for the RSCDS Ball celebrating the Queen’s silver Jubilee in 1977. Her Majesty was in attendance and danced in both halls during the course of the evening, seeming to particularly enjoy the Eightsome Reel.
We would also play three or four times a year at the regular country dances in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh. There were always crowds of dancers and it was a tremendous atmosphere with folk standing watching from the street railings too. While the dances always went well, packing up was a different matter and the council employees would often hassle the band so that they could get away home. Bands would have to unload their gear and take their cars away to park and vice versa at the end of the night. One night, by the time Hamish and the rest of the band had the gear safely stowed to head home, poor Andy the bass player (and Hamish’s brother-in-law) found his car locked up in the car park and it was not liberated until hours later by a vendor re-stocking his stand for the next morning.
With traditional Scottish music facing increasing competition from rock and roll, Hamish and the band decided to run their own dances in Lochearnhead Village Hall on a Saturday night. These were very well attended and became a highlight for dancers. The crowd, at times merry in more ways than one, could be a wee bit rough and tumble and Callander telephone operator Gavin Brown and Gus Millar would occasionally have to play bouncer. Hamish and I would laughingly recall when, after one such occasion, the band came back on stage and Hamish asked me, “Jack, where’s Dochie?” There was no sign of him or the accordions. The pair of us went through to the back room only to find it empty. I don’t know what made us check the cupboard but there he was, keeping the accordions safely out of harm’s way.
These were different times and I don’t think it’s likely that some of the characters who used to drive home after the dances would get away with it these days! Once Hamish and I watched one such pair after midnight – one was struggling with the keys to unlock his car while the other clambered onto his motorbike shouting, “Race ye doon the road! But mind, nae lights the night!”
And that’s not the only such tale : perhaps only marginally safer was the farmer at the side of Loch Lubnaig. Each week after the dance, Hamish would drop him at the end of his track where he was always met by his horse which would take him home. Fortunately, the horse always knew the way.
It’s indicative of Hamish’s caring character that there are so many stories about him helping people or keeping a kind eye on them. He would often give the Saturday staff a lift to Lochearnhead and Graeme burns remembers one night counting eleven waitresses in Hamish’s Bedford!
It’s not only for his kindness or as an outstanding fiddle player that Hamish will be remembered ; he often turned his hand to composition too. Perhaps one of his best-loved tunes is now known as Hamish’s tune, but the first part started life as Remmerts or The Remmerts of Hertford to give it’s full title. It was originally inspired by the German Polka Die Fischerin vom Bodensee which Hamish heard while on National Service with the Army’s mail train in Germany where he was part of the unit that ensured the servicemen received their letters from home.
Hamish’s tune was played as his funeral cortege proceeded through the main street of Callander. It was accompanied by his family and five Royal Mail postal vans, giving his local community a chance to say goodbye in spite of lockdown restrictions.
Hamish was the consummate bandsman, community figure, friend and family man and will be sorely missed by all who knew him. For myself, his band was among the happiest I’ve ever played in and Hamish himself was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known.
Gus Millar
Hamish Menzies as a person and bandleader was the most cheery and laid back man I have even known. I have to say that all the years from when I joined the band in 1963 with Hamish, Jack Delaney, Walter Sinton, Dochie McCallum, John Buchanan and latterly Tom McTague were just the greatest for me, the ‘novice’, and I gained so much from this happy bunch.
Dochie McCallum (Drymen)
I first met Hamish in 1958 when I joined The Glengarry Band. It was through Jack Delaney, another good friend who was playing with Andrew Rankine’s Band at the time, that he took an interest in my playing, for which I counted myself very lucky and honoured. Hamish took over the band from Arthur Easson who played drums and who went to play with Ian Powrie’s Band. Later the band changed to the Hamish Menzies SDB. The band was a great joy to play in.
I travelled up and down Scotland and England playing at country dance, at the Winter Gardens in Worcester, at Burnley in Lancashire and in Scotland at dances on the West coast and in the Borders. Once, on a week’s tour, I played a trick on Jack and Hamish by hiding their razors below their beds! When they returned Jack said to Hamish, “You’ll need to try my new razor” – the make was a sunbeam. When he went to get it out of his case it wasn’t there! Hamish said, “Don’t worry, you can use mine just now” He couldn’t find his either! They both focused on me and said, “It’s that wee devil there! He’s hid them!” I went for a wash, when I came back I couldn’t find my trousers, socks, one shoe or my bow tie! All great fun!
Hamish was a lovely person, kind and good natured, and will be sadly missed. He was one of nature’s gentlemen.
I could have written an encyclopaedia of the man’s life talking about all the people in the band. Aye, really!
Graeme Burns
Until I joined the band to play piano in 1969, I duputised for Hamish when work commitments kept him too busy at the Post Office. Hamish, whom I admired, made sure I knew the band sets by letting me sit at the back of the band when they were playing in Lochearnhead Village Hall. I thought Hamish was a fantastic bandleader and fiddle player, a real musician and dancer’s person. Oh it was fun!
Walter Sinton
“Wattie son,” he used to call me, “be ready about 7 o’clock and I’ll pick you up for the practice tonight.” That was the phone call I’d get from Hamish on a fairly regular basis for our weekly band rehearsals at Jack Delaney’s house in Alloa. He’d arrive at my parents’ place in Dunblane and peep the horn, and out I’d go to be greeted always with the biggest smile you could imagine. Hamish would be sitting there in his blue Bedford Dormobile, NES 290, or ‘Nessie’, as she was affectionately known, with all guns blazing – well, and with so much smoke in the car as though he’d fired the 1 o’clock cannon! I’d never met anyone who could smoke as much and drink as many cups of tea in a day. He used to drive leaning forward, with his left arm across the steering wheel. The fag was in the other hand and he’d probably manage another one or two before we got to Alloa. (fortunately, later in life he gave up the smokes, as I did).
As he was driving he used to whistle Scottish tunes without actually making a whistling sound, just blowing air in and out through his lips, so you could just make out the melody. This was 1961 when I was lucky enough to be asked to join his band. I was pretty raw as a piano player then but was encouraged and motivated to improve my ability by the threat of having to do a BBC audition so that the band could play live on the radio. We passed and did our first live broadcast in 1962. This was quite terrifying for me and probably for the others too : when the green light comes on you’re LIVE ON AIR! No retakes in these days. Afterwards we’d all go back to Jack’s and listen to the recording on his reel-to-reel Grundig recorder and analyse the performance.
1963 was the year of coincidences. We had a Wednesday night dance at Bridge of Orchy on 18th June. That was the night that Heavyweight boxer Henry Cooper fought Cassius Clay in London. We were all listening to the fight on the van radio. On 22nd November we played at a country dance at The Winter Gardens in Great Malvern, Worcestershire and Hamish told me on the steps leading up to the hall that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. There are certain times in your life when you remember exactly where you were when significant events happen.
I’m sure that 1964 was the year that Hamish started running the very popular Saturday night dances at Lochearnhead Hall. We had some great nights up there! The band would arrive about 8.30pm with not a soul around until the pubs closed – but by 10.30 the hall would be packed. We had many regular patrons attend these dances including a group of nurses from Crieff.
Fast forward to 1977 and a small aside. I had moved to Perth, Western Australia where I met up with Mr Ian Powrie. Ian rang me and said that Jimmy Shand was coming out to do a 6-week farewell tour of Australia and New Zealand. Ian was doing the tour as well with the Alexander Brothers, and Shand was bringing John Carmichael. Would I like to play piano with them? I said, “Yeah! I think I can just manage that!” “Where do I sign?” was my next thought! We played every major concert venue including the Sydney Opera House. At the end of the show I went out via the stage door to be greeted by a couple of nurses., the same nurses who used to go to the Lochearnhead dances! You never know who you’ll meet round the corner!
The West of Scotland was our domain and we were busy doing jobs between Callander and Oban and everywhere west of that. Some of the villages were pretty small but the population multiplied 10-fold when the Hamish Menzies SDB arrived in their blue jackets and black bow ties!
The band personnel didn’t change much. I reckon it lifted a notch when Gus Millar joined and sat behind the drums! His stick work is something else and it bonded the rhythm section together pretty tightly. “When there’s harmony in the team you stick together.” We were a pretty happy bunch of sometimes practical jokers and we’re all still in touch and good mates to this day.
Hamish was also known as ‘Ping’ to some as he would often ping the strings on his fiddle to check the tuning. He was one of the best people I ever met. I never saw him angry and he had no airs and graces. He was just a postie who played the violin and he had the respect of all band members and the many people who knew him. Marion, his lovely wife, is a gem.
He may have been the longest serving postmaster in the UK, but for me it was as the leader of his Scottish dance band that he left his stamp!
He is very fondly remembered.
Neil McMillan
The Hamish Menzies Band had a massive influence on me, firstly owing to Duncan (Dochie) McCallum who played with the band. I heard then live for the first time at Rowardennan Hotel in 1965. I just sat at the bottom of the hall in awe. Hearing Hamish’s band live was, for me, amazing as I had only heard the band on BBC Radio Scotland before this.
On some Saturday nights the band would be playing at Lochearnhead Village Hall and I would be picked up by Dochie who would take me to Callander where we would meet the rest of the band before all piling into Hamish’s Bedford van. Hamish drove the van and I can remember him sitting with his elbow on the steering wheel and a ‘fag’ in his other hand and always laughing. He was a very cheery person.
On one of these occasions I was lucky enough to have my first experience playing with the band on Dochie’s 3-row button-key box with the backing of Sandy McGilchrist on piano, Andy Anderson on double bass, Gus Millar on drums and Jack Delaney on second box. This has stayed with me all my life and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity that Dochie and Hamish’s band gave me as a very young boy, pointing me in the right direction music-wise.
It has been a great honour for me to play a very small part in such a great man’s life and a double honour to have been asked to contribute to these memories of Hamish Menzies.
Hamish was born in Callander in 1934 and lived there all his life. He was a postie there, and in 1972 he became Postmaster. Everyone liked Hamish and loved to chat with him or just pass the time of day. I understand a street will be named in his honour as a tribute to the high esteem in which he was held by the local community.
Hamish started to play the violin in his early teens having been taught by a local lady violin teacher. He first played in public at a Callander WRI meeting. Neither his mum nor his dad played but both loved music.
I first met Hamish in 1957 when I was asked by Callander bandleader, Arthur Easson, to give my opinion on a fiddle player who was coming to discuss joining The Glengarry Band. This very popular band consisted on Stuart MacPherson on accordion, the one and only Bill Black on fiddle, Martin Reid on piano and Arthur on drums. Arthur was about to lose Bill who was moving to Perthshire to work on another farm. Hamish, the local postie, got the job and we became firm friends. Some years later Arthur was invited to join The Ian Powrie Band and Hamish took over the running of the band.
Hamish formed his own band in 1960 comprising Jimmy Scott on piano, Stan Saunders on bass, drummer Bert Leishman, Dochie McCallum on 3-row and myself, Jack Delaney, on lead box. He married my niece Marion in 1962. Band practices were held at his mum and dad’s house in Esher Crescent in Callander where we were always made welcome. The personnel changed from time to time but the front line was unchanged throughout which kept the sound fairly consistent.
Over the years we had :
Stan Saunders, John Buchanan, Robert ‘Andy’ Anderson, Brian Mitchell and Tommy McTague on bass.
Blythe Lindsay and occasionally Hamish Reid on second box.
Bert Leishman and Gus Millar on drums.
And on piano Jim Scott, Walter Sinton, Andrew Dobson and Graeme Burns. Graeme also joined the band on fiddle when Hamish was doing the Christmas mail and, on one occasion, when Hamish injured his finger in a letter box.
Jim Scott and Stan Saunders left to join the Jimmy Shand Band. John Buchanan moved to south Africa and Walter Sinton went to Australia. Gus Millar joined the band in 1963 and remained till the band finished in 1972.
We travelled all over Scotland and parts of England playing at old time and country dances. Hamish and I would share the driving with Dochie sitting between us. These trips were all part of the fun and Hamish was a good driver and great company on the long journeys.
It was on one such tour that the one and only Billy Thom came with us to play drums. He and Dochie became good friends and often teamed up. On one occasion, while Hamish and I went to look at boats, they came along and went to Kyle of Lochalsh to buy presents to take home. On the way into a shop Dochie accidentally caught a large stand which displayed a huge variety of shoe and boot laces. The whole thing landed on the floor and there were laces scattered all over the shop. The assistants were helpless with laughter and they all crawled about the floor picking them up. Billy told Hamish that he had never been so embarrassed in his life.
During the later days of the band Gus provided the transport with his long-wheeled Bedford Dormobile, which actually had a heater which worked and also had a bit more leg-room in the back. This was indeed luxurious travelling. We played at a Christmas Eve dance at Crianlarich one year and left to go home around midnight. Shortly after leaving I noticed that the van was swinging a bit at the back and pointed this out to Gus. We had a flat nearside rear tyre and when changed it was found that the spare was flat too. Gus assured us that there wasn’t a problem as he had a second spare. Unfortunately, that one had the wrong wheel centres. Unfazed, Hamish managed to get a lift to Lix Toll Garage where he persuaded the owner to take him to Callander to collect a spare from his own Bedford. I think we got home to Alloa about 6am that Christmas Day.
We did the first of our 26 broadcasts in February 1962. These were all live and never without the odd slip. Once we arrived at Studio 1 in Edinburgh to find neither a producer nor an engineer. The only person there was a trainee engineer who was a bit unsure of the procedure. Thanks to Hamish’s unflappable nature we all coped and the listeners were none the wiser.
It’s perhaps as well Hamish was as calm as he was. Once in Dalmally village Hall we arrived to find a damaged piano with the action hanging out making it unplayable. With Hamish at one end of the piano, I took off my braces and stretched them across the hammers to keep them in place, then attached the other end to make it playable. Younger band members have since often dismissed it as a tall tale but it can be corroborated by Jake MacKay from Inveraray!
Instrumental mishaps weren’t a common feature of band jobs with Hamish but there was one more incident which he would retell on occasion. We went to Dundee to do a broadcast from the studio above the library. I had devised a system where the bass was slung inside the van under the roof and this seemed to work well until that day. As we were releasing the front strap the bass fell onto the seat and broke its neck. Needless to say, this was the last time we rigged up the van in such a fashion! Fortunately, local bandleader Ron Kerr of the Cameron Kerr Band was there and he went home to borrow his brother’s double bass for us.
We had many wonderful experiences playing in the band. We were delighted to be invited to play with a second band at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh for the RSCDS Ball celebrating the Queen’s silver Jubilee in 1977. Her Majesty was in attendance and danced in both halls during the course of the evening, seeming to particularly enjoy the Eightsome Reel.
We would also play three or four times a year at the regular country dances in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh. There were always crowds of dancers and it was a tremendous atmosphere with folk standing watching from the street railings too. While the dances always went well, packing up was a different matter and the council employees would often hassle the band so that they could get away home. Bands would have to unload their gear and take their cars away to park and vice versa at the end of the night. One night, by the time Hamish and the rest of the band had the gear safely stowed to head home, poor Andy the bass player (and Hamish’s brother-in-law) found his car locked up in the car park and it was not liberated until hours later by a vendor re-stocking his stand for the next morning.
With traditional Scottish music facing increasing competition from rock and roll, Hamish and the band decided to run their own dances in Lochearnhead Village Hall on a Saturday night. These were very well attended and became a highlight for dancers. The crowd, at times merry in more ways than one, could be a wee bit rough and tumble and Callander telephone operator Gavin Brown and Gus Millar would occasionally have to play bouncer. Hamish and I would laughingly recall when, after one such occasion, the band came back on stage and Hamish asked me, “Jack, where’s Dochie?” There was no sign of him or the accordions. The pair of us went through to the back room only to find it empty. I don’t know what made us check the cupboard but there he was, keeping the accordions safely out of harm’s way.
These were different times and I don’t think it’s likely that some of the characters who used to drive home after the dances would get away with it these days! Once Hamish and I watched one such pair after midnight – one was struggling with the keys to unlock his car while the other clambered onto his motorbike shouting, “Race ye doon the road! But mind, nae lights the night!”
And that’s not the only such tale : perhaps only marginally safer was the farmer at the side of Loch Lubnaig. Each week after the dance, Hamish would drop him at the end of his track where he was always met by his horse which would take him home. Fortunately, the horse always knew the way.
It’s indicative of Hamish’s caring character that there are so many stories about him helping people or keeping a kind eye on them. He would often give the Saturday staff a lift to Lochearnhead and Graeme burns remembers one night counting eleven waitresses in Hamish’s Bedford!
It’s not only for his kindness or as an outstanding fiddle player that Hamish will be remembered ; he often turned his hand to composition too. Perhaps one of his best-loved tunes is now known as Hamish’s tune, but the first part started life as Remmerts or The Remmerts of Hertford to give it’s full title. It was originally inspired by the German Polka Die Fischerin vom Bodensee which Hamish heard while on National Service with the Army’s mail train in Germany where he was part of the unit that ensured the servicemen received their letters from home.
Hamish’s tune was played as his funeral cortege proceeded through the main street of Callander. It was accompanied by his family and five Royal Mail postal vans, giving his local community a chance to say goodbye in spite of lockdown restrictions.
Hamish was the consummate bandsman, community figure, friend and family man and will be sorely missed by all who knew him. For myself, his band was among the happiest I’ve ever played in and Hamish himself was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known.
Gus Millar
Hamish Menzies as a person and bandleader was the most cheery and laid back man I have even known. I have to say that all the years from when I joined the band in 1963 with Hamish, Jack Delaney, Walter Sinton, Dochie McCallum, John Buchanan and latterly Tom McTague were just the greatest for me, the ‘novice’, and I gained so much from this happy bunch.
Dochie McCallum (Drymen)
I first met Hamish in 1958 when I joined The Glengarry Band. It was through Jack Delaney, another good friend who was playing with Andrew Rankine’s Band at the time, that he took an interest in my playing, for which I counted myself very lucky and honoured. Hamish took over the band from Arthur Easson who played drums and who went to play with Ian Powrie’s Band. Later the band changed to the Hamish Menzies SDB. The band was a great joy to play in.
I travelled up and down Scotland and England playing at country dance, at the Winter Gardens in Worcester, at Burnley in Lancashire and in Scotland at dances on the West coast and in the Borders. Once, on a week’s tour, I played a trick on Jack and Hamish by hiding their razors below their beds! When they returned Jack said to Hamish, “You’ll need to try my new razor” – the make was a sunbeam. When he went to get it out of his case it wasn’t there! Hamish said, “Don’t worry, you can use mine just now” He couldn’t find his either! They both focused on me and said, “It’s that wee devil there! He’s hid them!” I went for a wash, when I came back I couldn’t find my trousers, socks, one shoe or my bow tie! All great fun!
Hamish was a lovely person, kind and good natured, and will be sadly missed. He was one of nature’s gentlemen.
I could have written an encyclopaedia of the man’s life talking about all the people in the band. Aye, really!
Graeme Burns
Until I joined the band to play piano in 1969, I duputised for Hamish when work commitments kept him too busy at the Post Office. Hamish, whom I admired, made sure I knew the band sets by letting me sit at the back of the band when they were playing in Lochearnhead Village Hall. I thought Hamish was a fantastic bandleader and fiddle player, a real musician and dancer’s person. Oh it was fun!
Walter Sinton
“Wattie son,” he used to call me, “be ready about 7 o’clock and I’ll pick you up for the practice tonight.” That was the phone call I’d get from Hamish on a fairly regular basis for our weekly band rehearsals at Jack Delaney’s house in Alloa. He’d arrive at my parents’ place in Dunblane and peep the horn, and out I’d go to be greeted always with the biggest smile you could imagine. Hamish would be sitting there in his blue Bedford Dormobile, NES 290, or ‘Nessie’, as she was affectionately known, with all guns blazing – well, and with so much smoke in the car as though he’d fired the 1 o’clock cannon! I’d never met anyone who could smoke as much and drink as many cups of tea in a day. He used to drive leaning forward, with his left arm across the steering wheel. The fag was in the other hand and he’d probably manage another one or two before we got to Alloa. (fortunately, later in life he gave up the smokes, as I did).
As he was driving he used to whistle Scottish tunes without actually making a whistling sound, just blowing air in and out through his lips, so you could just make out the melody. This was 1961 when I was lucky enough to be asked to join his band. I was pretty raw as a piano player then but was encouraged and motivated to improve my ability by the threat of having to do a BBC audition so that the band could play live on the radio. We passed and did our first live broadcast in 1962. This was quite terrifying for me and probably for the others too : when the green light comes on you’re LIVE ON AIR! No retakes in these days. Afterwards we’d all go back to Jack’s and listen to the recording on his reel-to-reel Grundig recorder and analyse the performance.
1963 was the year of coincidences. We had a Wednesday night dance at Bridge of Orchy on 18th June. That was the night that Heavyweight boxer Henry Cooper fought Cassius Clay in London. We were all listening to the fight on the van radio. On 22nd November we played at a country dance at The Winter Gardens in Great Malvern, Worcestershire and Hamish told me on the steps leading up to the hall that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. There are certain times in your life when you remember exactly where you were when significant events happen.
I’m sure that 1964 was the year that Hamish started running the very popular Saturday night dances at Lochearnhead Hall. We had some great nights up there! The band would arrive about 8.30pm with not a soul around until the pubs closed – but by 10.30 the hall would be packed. We had many regular patrons attend these dances including a group of nurses from Crieff.
Fast forward to 1977 and a small aside. I had moved to Perth, Western Australia where I met up with Mr Ian Powrie. Ian rang me and said that Jimmy Shand was coming out to do a 6-week farewell tour of Australia and New Zealand. Ian was doing the tour as well with the Alexander Brothers, and Shand was bringing John Carmichael. Would I like to play piano with them? I said, “Yeah! I think I can just manage that!” “Where do I sign?” was my next thought! We played every major concert venue including the Sydney Opera House. At the end of the show I went out via the stage door to be greeted by a couple of nurses., the same nurses who used to go to the Lochearnhead dances! You never know who you’ll meet round the corner!
The West of Scotland was our domain and we were busy doing jobs between Callander and Oban and everywhere west of that. Some of the villages were pretty small but the population multiplied 10-fold when the Hamish Menzies SDB arrived in their blue jackets and black bow ties!
The band personnel didn’t change much. I reckon it lifted a notch when Gus Millar joined and sat behind the drums! His stick work is something else and it bonded the rhythm section together pretty tightly. “When there’s harmony in the team you stick together.” We were a pretty happy bunch of sometimes practical jokers and we’re all still in touch and good mates to this day.
Hamish was also known as ‘Ping’ to some as he would often ping the strings on his fiddle to check the tuning. He was one of the best people I ever met. I never saw him angry and he had no airs and graces. He was just a postie who played the violin and he had the respect of all band members and the many people who knew him. Marion, his lovely wife, is a gem.
He may have been the longest serving postmaster in the UK, but for me it was as the leader of his Scottish dance band that he left his stamp!
He is very fondly remembered.
Neil McMillan
The Hamish Menzies Band had a massive influence on me, firstly owing to Duncan (Dochie) McCallum who played with the band. I heard then live for the first time at Rowardennan Hotel in 1965. I just sat at the bottom of the hall in awe. Hearing Hamish’s band live was, for me, amazing as I had only heard the band on BBC Radio Scotland before this.
On some Saturday nights the band would be playing at Lochearnhead Village Hall and I would be picked up by Dochie who would take me to Callander where we would meet the rest of the band before all piling into Hamish’s Bedford van. Hamish drove the van and I can remember him sitting with his elbow on the steering wheel and a ‘fag’ in his other hand and always laughing. He was a very cheery person.
On one of these occasions I was lucky enough to have my first experience playing with the band on Dochie’s 3-row button-key box with the backing of Sandy McGilchrist on piano, Andy Anderson on double bass, Gus Millar on drums and Jack Delaney on second box. This has stayed with me all my life and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity that Dochie and Hamish’s band gave me as a very young boy, pointing me in the right direction music-wise.
It has been a great honour for me to play a very small part in such a great man’s life and a double honour to have been asked to contribute to these memories of Hamish Menzies.