BIGGAR Accordion & Fiddle Club brought their season to an end in fine style with local lad Tom Orr and his band. Work had taken Tom up to Aberdeen for a few years but he is now back at Hyndfordbridge and working as a structural engineer on oil platform construction at Rosyth.

Accompanying him were Marie Fielding on fiddle, Craig Paton on keyboard and Gordon Smith on drums. Together they gave us an excellent traditional programme, with a very modern slant, which was enjoyed by everyone. Tom in turn complemented the wealth of local talent who turned out to support the club and in particular local teacher, Keith Dickson, who is responsible for most of them.

Local players were accordionists Janet Graham, Davy Millar, Fraser Hewitt, Charlie Todd, Ronnie Johnstone, Fin Hope (second time), Rose Cursiter, Samantha and Andrew Erskine, Emma Dickson, India Smith, Kyra Smith, Kyle Rowan, Adin Graham, Adam Gibb, Allan Smith, Jim Gold, John Weaks and David Kennedy as well as a group from the Scots Music Group in Edinburgh namely Bill Wallace, Liz Hall, Gordon Stewart, Billy Higgins, Rachel Frith, Ed Murray and Angus Creech.

On fiddle were Hannah Dickson and Tom Gold and on penny whistle Willie Little. Providing backing on keyboard we had Jim Gold, Alan Rowan, Alan Gardiner, Keith Dickson and Jim Nichol. Drummers were Tom Hope, Geordie Shiels, Andrew Gibb, Ali McIntyre, James Dickson and the irrepressible Andrew Barrie.

At the end of another successful season (in fact our 40th – with a “birthday celebration” planned for the November 2014 meeting) chairman Alan Gardiner thanked all the people who made it possible including the Biggar Bowling Club (Alex and Nettie in particular), the KODA mums for providing the excellent buffet at every meeting, the listeners and the local players. We in turn thank Alan for all his hard work and look forward to Sunday, September 14 when the club restarts with another local lad, Andrew Gib,b and his Broadcasting SDB.