The Edinburgh Tattoo 1982
I come from learning to drive, loving to drive, hoping not to get caught
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Wanting to expand my choral experience further, I joined the Kevock Choir, which conveniently rehearsed in the next village. We sang mainly Scottish choral pieces but perhaps more exciting still was the chance to sing in the Edinburgh Tattoo. The Tattoo was short of performers for the 1982 production due to the Falklands War so enlisted the help of the University Pipe Bands as well as the Kevock Choir.
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The 1982 show was a most bizarre experience. We stood in our long kilts, sometimes in driving rain, on the ‘Coal house roof’ of the castle. This gave us the most enviable view of the entire esplanade. However, the biggest difficulty we had was following the Sargent Major who was directing the orchestra on the esplanade. He was about 150m from where we were standing and at least 50m lower, so we had to follow his baton and not sing to the music we heard as of course sound travels slower than light.
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Part of our set included singing in Russian the words to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture while a man dressed as Napoleon sat astride a large white horse up on the castle battlements. One wonders what went through the planner’s mind when they were working on this show and how they got that horse up there.
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High on the coal and not always raining, Russian flowing from the long kilted and the black-tied. Audience of thousands watching a Napoleon surveying his kingdom on a white charger. Massed bands playing overtures from 1812 while Pipers blow a tattoo in the key of A. Fàilte dhachaigh (welcome home).
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History
The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is very much a permanent fixture in The Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama in August, and has been showcasing regiments, orchestras, and the pipes and drums since the first show in 1952.
The term ‘tattoo’ derives from a 17th-century Dutch phrase doe den tap toe ("turn off the tap") Played by a regiment's Corps of Drums, this was a signal to tavern owners each night to turn off the taps of their ale kegs so that the soldiers would retire to their billeted lodgings at a reasonable hour. There was little evidence of taps being turned off during the two weeks of the Tattoo I was involved in, culminating in night long parties at the Redford Barracks.
The term ‘tattoo’ derives from a 17th-century Dutch phrase doe den tap toe ("turn off the tap") Played by a regiment's Corps of Drums, this was a signal to tavern owners each night to turn off the taps of their ale kegs so that the soldiers would retire to their billeted lodgings at a reasonable hour. There was little evidence of taps being turned off during the two weeks of the Tattoo I was involved in, culminating in night long parties at the Redford Barracks.