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Dutton Highland Games: Gone but not forgotten

By Michael Grey


Photo: Pipe Band Winners - Competition in the pipe band classes at the Dutton Highland Games yesterday proved keen with 15 entries vying for first class honours. The St. Thomas Police Association band under Pipe Major Gordon Tuck managed two firsts in the events. Seen here with their trophies are, left to right: Gordon Tuck holding trophies for the March, Strathspey and Reel, first class, and the Open Slow March class; Pipe Major Alex Robertson, Highland House Highlanders, Woodstock, first in Grade 2; and Pipe Major Bill McLeod, Bruce County Junior Pipe Band, Kincardine, first in Grade 3.

(A note on Scots-born, P/M Alex Robertson, Woodstock, Ontario: he led the Royal Highland Fusiliers Pipe Band to victory in the grade two pipe band contest at the 1970 Cowal Highland Gathering - a victory,

then, arguably on par with winning a World Pipe Band Championship)


The Dutton Highland Games were once a staple of the PPBSO’s Ontario games scene. They started in 1951 and ceased operation around 1990.


Anyone driving on the 401 highway west to the recent (outstanding) Kingsville-Essex games will have noticed signs for Dutton - just past London, about an hour and half drive west of Toronto.


Like many in Canada, the area was a place settled and largely built by Scottish immigrants. Among the most famous to have been born in the area is the famous economist, John Kenneth Galbraith (1908 - 2006). I recommend his stories of growing up in this area of southwestern Ontario found in his book, “The Scotch”.


Dutton Highland Games was the third in a row of days on the Ontario calendar and it was only the very hardcore piper or drummer (with lots of energy and "gas money") who would manage the trifecta of Saturday, Maxville, Sunday, Montreal and the games on "holiday August Monday," the 800 kilometer drive to Dutton from park in St. Lambert, the home, then, of the legendary Montreal, games.


The core of those competing would be local bands and pipers and drummers, and those on their way back home to the Windsor-Detroit area from the events of the days before. Still, there was always a hearty contingent from the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area - and beyond - who would make their presence known. Like so many, the games were community-centred and, in comparison to the events of the previous Saturday and Sunday, smaller in size - but no less

entertaining.


Dutton was a warm, low-key, always-fun event. In fact, to help pass along the vibe of these excellent games, consider that the PPBSO would often encourage solo pipers and drummers not competing in a band to cobble together a group to help fill-out the afternoon pipe band competitions. Invariably, one of these custom-made combos would be ready to go with a medley of garden favourite tunes.


In this video you will see a grey-bearded Drum Major leading the massed bands. This is George Forgan, D/M of the long-gone grade one, Erskine Pipe Band from Hamilton, Ontario and long-time president of the PPBSO. It might be noted that it was during George Forgan’s time as president that the PPBSO first created a judge’s certification program (1987-88). It was also at one Dutton games that

I found myself as an amateur piper leading a throw-together group dubbed, “The Forgan Nuts”. I can only imagine the challenge for any judge to assess that bunch, certified or not.


You can have a taster of the Monday, August 1, 1988 games thanks to

a video made by Leamington Cable Television. Here is it:



A fantastic archival photo from Elgin County Archives of three giants

of the PPBSO, all at Dutton games in 1968.


And for anyone that would like to have a look at what a Dutton

Highland Games amateur piping and drumming medal looked like they

can look to the online auction site eBay - and - if really taken with it,

maybe make it their own.


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