For anyone who has been at an Ottawa Branch meeting for the past ten years, you’ll have been in the company in Joan Matthews Khan. She has long been one of the bigger supporters of the Branch and one of the most engaging people with which to have a chat.
She had no family background in piping at all, the only band she knew was the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa. But she used to follow the band any time it was on parade and can remember being in the crowd in front of the Chateau Laurier one day cheering the Cameron Highlanders Welcoming Home parade from the Union Train Station to Parliament Hill and then down to Lansdowne Park in 1945 (she was then in Grade 8, Rockcliffe Public School). There was no organized teaching for the public back when she was young and certainly not for girls/women at the time. She never thought of playing with a band as that was out of her wildest dreams.
Thank you to Graeme Ogilvie for writing this story!