WATCH: Burntisland pipe band create Christmas music video to raise money for children’s hospices

The Burntisland and District Novice Juvenile band decided to get into the Christmas spirit by creating a Christmas music video and raising funding for Children’s Hospices around Scotland.

In the video, members of the band, which is made up of around 60-70 young people from the ages of eight to 17, can be seen in their festive wares beside Christmas decorations, playing The Pogues hit Christmas tune, Fairytale of New York.

All the young people involved filmed themselves in their houses playing the song which was then edited by ‘computer genius’ Scott Young, a tutor for the band.

Craig Hooper, a teacher from Fair Isle Primary School in Kirkcaldy and Pipe Major of the band said: “We were asking kids what songs they wanted to do and we naturally turned to Christmas songs and The Pogues song was one of the ones we were playing and it just grew arms and legs from there.

“We knew we wanted to make a video from it and the drummers got involved and they wrote their own score and we knew we wanted to do something for charity.”

Mr Hooper has set up a JustGiving page for the band with a £500 target to raise funds for the children’s hospice charity CHAS, which offers full family support service for babies, children and young people with life-shortening conditions.

Talking about why the young people chose the charity, Mr Hooper explained: “It was basically a way of helping other kids and that’s what the band came up with.

“A few of them had heard of CHAS before and basically they are kids and they wanted to help other kids.

“The kids who are getting help from the hospice are having a harder time than we are having and need more help and we thought we could help them.”

The band has been doing zoom practices for most of the summer and entered an online Red Hot Chilli Pipers’ competition where they won the public vote category and came runner-up with the judges for their rendition of Elvis’ ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love.’

"I’ve had so much positive feedback about the band from parents who have said that the band has been keeping their kids’ spirits up and kept their focus in lockdown so it’s been great to have that for them,” said Mr Hooper.

The group made up of around 20 pipers, 20 drummers and 20 novice pipers still cannot play indoors together due to lockdown restrictions but recently did marching in Burntisland Links at a two-metre distance to get together once again.

They have invested in twenty electronic chanters to allow bagpipers to meet who have not been allowed to play together as under government guidelines blowing an instrument indoors is still thought of as too unsafe.

Mr Hooper is hoping to reunite the band for a marching and prize-giving weekend, weather and lockdown permitting.

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