They say that with Scots emigrés the porridge lasts until the third generation. Four generations of members are gathered here tonight at the Family Gathering Ball to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of the South American Piping Association and I doubt if many of them have eaten porridge for breakfast this morning, but then again this is essentially a family event and no one seems too concerned about missing (or for that matter getting) their oats.

 

The night has a special international flavour. Incongruously, it has been decided to hold the Ball on a Mississippi River Queen moored on the Costanera Norte. A beautiful place to hold a reception by the way, with its three tier structure and the chance to put out into the river if the weather holds. Perhaps it’s a bit blustery for these ersatz Scots, or perhaps the pilot hasn’t arrived, anyway we stay firmly tethered to the Costanera.

 

I arrive together with prominent local businessman Jimmie Wray, who, kilt over arm, immediately disappears into the Gents to reappear properly bekilted and besporraned. One can perhaps forgive him for not leaving the southern suburbs in Highland Evening Dress – trying to flag down a friendly motorist on Pavón wearing a kilt might not do his image much good, not to speak of his personal safety. We are met on arrival by Kenneth McKellar, a long way from home and not sounding a day older. Most people present are wearing something ‘Scots’, from full Highland Dress to discreet ties and rabbit’s foot brooches. I feel glad I looked out a tartan tie before leaving home. I’m not sure if the clan tartans are any more legitimate than my tie in many cases and I’m sure no true Scot would tolerate so much ice in the freely flowing whisky but everyone seems to be having fun and I’m sure no one would object to that.

 

With the swirling and skirling of pipes and drums, the girls with their jabots and berets, the boys with dirks and garter tabs in and around their thick woolen hose, plaids and kilts representing a multitude of clans, the night is a riot of colour and pageantry contrasting oddly with the Mississippi paddle boat on which we are gathered.The evening starts with a Grand March in which Drum Major Lawrence Towers leads some ten pipers and six drummers of various shapes and sizes around the middle deck. Behind them strut several proud little four and five year olds, the ‘sapitos’, determined not to be left out and bearing flags representing Argentina, Scotland, SAPA and the Gordon and MacLean clans, groups into which SAPA members are divided for administrative and competitive purposes.All in all, some two hundred people follow Lawrence round and round as if he were the Pied Piper of Hamelin, in ever widening rows until the physical limitations of the Mississippi Queen put a stop to their peregrinations. The waiters seem a little bemused by all this; in all fairness the confused ritual of a Grand March and the sight of a Highland Band all togged up is perhaps a little awe inspiring the first time you see it.

The Grand March is followed by an Eightsome Reel, in which the problem of the supporting columns is ingeniously solved by forming circles around them. I fear for the speaker stacks as a myriad of kilts and plaids swirl to the sound of Jimmy Shand and his Band; Maclean and Gordon, Black Watch and Fraser, Royal Stuart and Mackenzie, all the hues of the Highlands. A man in a kilt next to me asks why I’m not wearing one. I tell him “I’m English, not Scots”. “I’m Argentine”, he replied, “who cares”. And he’s right, tonight one can be both, or neither; for the time being nationality is playing second fiddle to emotion .Eightsome over, a few disco numbers allow the light reflected from a mirrored sphere to pick out the various swords, pins and brooches on the dancers’ plaids as the relaxed discipline of Scottish country dancing gives way to frenzy of a more international kind. Coloured lights pulse with the music as we work up an appetite. Then down to the lower deck for something to eat, supper with SAPA, as it were.

After the first course Lawrence Towers, every inch a Drum Major when kitted out with baton and sash but surprisingly mild mannered as an emcee, takes the floor to thank the founder members who are present, Alistair Lean, Norberto Bryant, Oscar MacHenry de la Plaza and Luis Eastman, and presents them with an Anniversary Badge. Alistair Lean was the first Pipe Major and he speaks of his debut some 25 years earlier, finding it it fitting that there should be six dancers making their debut that night. This, and the presence of the ‘sapitos’ who are also just getting started in SAPA, provide a chain of continuity which he feels appropriate. The event is perhaps a little hermetic to the outsider but clearly this is a nostalgic occasion, in a sense a family reunion, a gathering of the clans.

Second course over, and up we troop to the middle deck for more entertainment; the top deck, despite the attractions of its artificial turf, canopies, bars and and bunting proves a bit wintry for these Argentines, more accustomed to the temperate Pampa than the rigours of the Scottish Highlands. It’s now 1.00 a.m. Some of us linger at tables, renewing acquaintances, some move it to Ruben Blades, bringing a touch of Central America to increase the international feel, when suddenly the PA informs us that it is time for the Gay Gordons , and Panama gives way to the Borders for a while.

But not for long, and we’re soon back to some anodyne Argentine rap. Good sound system this boat has though, even if the dj looks the wrong side of forty to maintain his street cred. Peter Edwards and I move out onto a quarter deck for a breath of air and to escape the jump being pumped. Peter is an ex-treasurer of SAPA and he tells me he has come all the way from Venezuela where he is now working; he arranged leave so as to be able to attend the anniversary ball. I am impressed. SAPA clearly arouses great loyalty to its members and one wonders whether more might not have attended if there had been more room on the boat and the cost of entrance ticket had been a little less steep. Clearly a policy decision was taken here to splash out on the anniversary.

We go back down for ice cream and coffee. Waiting for Alejandra to reappear I idly read the list of band and dancing group members. The names are revealing; a predictable scattering of Scots names, notably the Mackenzie clan which is seemingly able to put on its own show single-handedly, but the rest is as cosmopolitan as the Buenos Aires telephone directory. Which is of course what you would expect; SAPA is far from a jingoistic enclave, rather it is a group of people united in some cases by a common ancestry and in all by a feeling for Scots music and culture.

SAPA is not just a Pipe Band and Dancing School, it is a family. Nonagenarians Reginald Hortis and his wife are present; so are children, grand children and great-grandchildren of theirs. I look around at all the little children, the ‘sapitos’, got up up in Highland dress and having the time of their lives. SAPA runs a school for these little ones and teaches them how to dance and to play the pipes and drums, not only providing future members but infusing them with a feel for the culture. But more important, it includes them – you feel that this is an occasion for all the family. SAPA seems to be something you have in your blood and on tonight’s showing likely to survive into the next generation at least.

My reflections are interrupted by a new arrival on the dance floor. For reasons not altogether clear a bald headed man with a red bow tie, a walking stick and a pronounced limp has grabbed a microphone and started to belt out the Spanish favorite ‘Granada’. He comes to an end and tells us he is Bolivian. Now it is all clear. Of course, if you get a bunch of Argentines disguised as Scots on a Mississippi River Boat in Buenos Aires, well it is only reasonable that a Bolivian will start singing Spanish songs. I refill my glass.

The Bolivian (I never got his name) is very good. He takes the Mississippi Queen on a tour of the world, and we stop off in Israel, the United States, Mexico, Italy, Chile, etc, for him to give us songs and jokes from each of these places. He has the audience in stitches. As I said he is very good. Nothing to do with Scotland, but very good.

After our world tour the riverboat redocks and the coffee arrives. I chat with one of the dancers who has been with the dancing troupe for longer than she cares to admit, and she explains to me some of the arcane niceties of Band folklore. That highland dancing was really for boys, not girls. That unlike other bands in BA the SAPA girl dancers don’t use sporrans, which are apparently only used by men. (I noticed later that they don’t wear thick woolen stockings either, but that may be a question of economy). That pipers play with straight fingers, not bent ones. That there is Highland dancing, accompanied by pipe bands, and country or formation dancing accompanied by dance bands, and not to confuse the two. We discuss haggis and neats and more lore and wisdom of the Hills and Valleys, until she has to leave me to prepare for the show.

Feeling concerned about her digestive processes I follow her upstairs where the band is tuning up on the quayside, if that is the word to describe the sounds produced by a pipe band getting ready to perform. The music of the bagpipes is certainly an acquired taste, and there is a difference between a solitary piper dimly perceived on the top of a battlement through the double glazing of one’s drawing room and ten of them in the close confines of the middle deck of a Mississippi River Boat. I personally like the sound although you won’t have to go far to find a different opinion.

A man comes up to me and suggests I might like to look around the boat. I surmise correctly that this is the manager and that he has got wind of my press connections. I decline graciously, on the grounds that the show is about to begin, but assure him sincerely that I am very impressed with the quality of the food, the courtesy of his staff, the facilities provided on the boat, etc, etc. A good test of the flexibility of caterers is their ability to handle unexpected demands efficiently. My unannounced request for vegetarian food produced immediate and exceptionally tasty results. I tell him this too, but I keep quiet about the undrinkable bottle of red wine left at our table which we surreptitiously switched with the table next door.

I am informed that SAPA are off to the Cordoba Beer Festival next weekend. Apparently they do a lot of cultural festivals like the Feria de las Naciones , and have appeared in many folk lore or cultural events in theatres and on television. Being a family group they are equally at home playing less formal events, and do many shows, large and small, at kermesses, receptions weddings and private parties. Come to think of it, it’s a nice idea to have a Scots band to liven up your party, and certainly different.

The Band marches in for the Show, Lawrence Towers at the fore, magnificent in full regalia. One of the side drums is played by a boy who can’t be more than ten years old. He keeps good time in any case, and the Band performs its show, consisting on this occasion of a piping and drumming display and three dances, carefully chosen to give all the girls a chance to dance and to provide a variety of different dancing styles.

SAPA is a school, and what better to start the dancing than a number written by one of the members, Ann’s Delight , arranged for SAPA dancing instructor Ann Walker by Lawrence’s elder brother, Andrew. As I said, it’s a family band. One of those foot-tapping tunes so typical of Scottish music, and I find myself somewhat irreverently singing to myself “Auntie Mary had a canary . . .” Memory is a strange thing.

Ann’s Delight is followed by Seann Triubhas , which as I am sure all readers know is Gaelic for ‘old trousers’. An intricate dance often seen in competitions, it is performed by five of the troupe, and followed by Broadswords , a sword dance performed on this occasion by sixteen girls whose feet are not supposed to touch the swords while they dance. They don’t, as far as I can see, which is a miracle in itself given the cramped space available. If I understod my informant correctly this is one of the few dances actually intended to be danced by lassies rather than laddies.

Highland dancing is a joy to watch, with its prancing walk, stylised bows from the waist, scissor leaps and intricate footwork. They say that men love a girl in uniform; whether that is true need not detain us here but there is no doubt that it adds to the overall appeal. The Pipers too sport a colourful uniform, originally designed one feels to make them look more intimidating. The combination of the two, Pipe Band and dancers, is unique, and a joy to watch.

To the sound of Scotland the Brave the band and dancers march round and round ending up in a strange configuration which finally reveals itself as a representation of the letters S. A. P. A. The girls produce flashlights from the recesses of their uniforms to duplicate the same motif on the ceiling. A moving moment, and the show is over.

The band marches out, paper hats, streamers, whistles, masks, etc are handed out, and the dancing starts again. For me it’s time to go home. Fortunately I get offered a lift by the video operator who was filming the event. We leave together at 3.30 am to the strains of Sergio Mendes’ Brazil ; somehow totally in keeping with the international flavour of this Scots night in Argentina. As for porridge for breakfast tomorrow, I somehow don’t think anyone will be up in time.