Brian Williamson is certainly one of most recognizable members of the Ottawa Branch, and over the past fifty years has been one of the most active of pipers, teachers, and adjudicators. By far he has been one of the most prolific contributors to everything involved with the society, both at the Branch level and the Provincial level.
Brian grew up in Ottawa with no piping or other musical background in his family, but seeing pipers at the Changing of the Guard ceremony on Parliament Hill, and again at his grandfather’s retirement, it must have planted a seed. He started lessons in September 1963 (at age nine) under Pipe Major Sam Scott of Manotick – purely by luck and convenience, since a colleague of his father was learning from Sam and Manotick was just a short drive from their house in the City View neighbourhood. Sam taught at his home initially as three-hour Saturday morning
sessions with mixed levels of students (think of a pioneer days one-room school), evolving later to 1-11⁄2 hour scheduled groups of about equal level students as Sam taught more and more students. Brian also participated in two years of one-week summer camps that Sam organized for a group of his students..
Thank you to Graeme Ogilvie for writing this story!