Published: Monday, 28th July, 2008 12:00pm

Edinburgh Tattoo opener for Peeblesshire pipe band

A Peeblesshire village pipe band will have the prestigious honour of opening this year"s Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

West Linton and District Pipe Band were awarded the honour thanks to their Honorary President Brigadier Ritchie wish upon his retirement from the Tattoo Organising Committee.

The band will open the glittering event with a ten-minute performance on the first night.

Band President James Dripps said: 'It"s a fantastic and unique honour for us because usually it"s only military bands who perform. Everybody is excited but also a little nervous. I"ve only ever seen it on TV and now the first time I"m going to be at it, I"ll be performing.

'It"s stimulated a lot of our younger players to rehearse and practice harder which is a great thing also. It will be a first public performance for a number of them!

Now, on average, just over 217,000 people see the Tattoo live on the castle esplanade each year, and it always sells out in advance. 30% of the audience are from Scotland and 35% from the rest of the UK. The remaining 35% of the audience consists of 70,000 visitors from overseas.

Worldwide, a further 100 million people will see the band"s once in a lifetime performance on television.

James said: 'We"ve got the World Championships coming up in a number of weeks in Glasgow which understandably we haven"t paid a lot of attention too. But playing to a 9,000 crowd and God knows how many on TV will go along way to improving us for it. We"ll be alright on the night and will make West Linton proud.'