An exciting opportunity to join our Duty Management team at a vibrant visitor attraction and arts venue in central Edinburgh. In the role you will provide an excellent standard of customer service as the first point of contact for all visitors to the Scottish Storytelling Centre. You will work with colleagues and partners to provide a warm welcome and high standard of customer care to all visitors to John Knox House and the Scottish Storytelling Centre.

As well as having the ability to provide a high standard of customer service, you must also be able to demonstrate excellent communication, and interpersonal skills will have the ability to manage a variety of tasks under pressure.

You will work initially 20- 35 hours per week on a flexible rota which will mainly be evenings and weekends.

The Scottish Storytelling Centre is a partnership between The Church of Scotland and TRACS (Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland). The SSC is a vibrant arts venue with a seasonal programme of live storytelling, theatre, music, exhibitions, workshops, family events, and festivals.

• Title: Evening and Weekend Duty Manager, Scottish Storytelling Centre
• Salary: £16.50 per hour
• Location: Edinburgh
• Hours: Part Time, 20 hours per week until end of July, Full time 35 hours per week, 3^rd – 31^st August 2026.
• Closing date: Monday 4^th May 2026, 12:00pm

Full details on how to apply and a job description, can be found by clicking the link below.

Job Application Pack

I have been fascinated by bagpipes for as long as I can remember. It began, I’m told, when, as a three-year-old boy growing up in the Perthshire town of Pitlochry, I used to demand to be taken down to the main street every week in the summer months to watch the local pipe band, the Vale of Atholl, march through the town to entertain locals and tourists alike. I can’t recall whether it was the sight, the sound, or (more likely) the combination that stirred something within me, but whatever it was, from then on I was hooked! When I was six years old, my mother saw an advert in the local newsagent’s window advertising free lessons being given by the band, and asked if I wanted to try it. I certainly did! The teacher was Allan ‘Piper’ Cameron, at the time recently retired as pipe major of the Vale of Atholl, but who had agreed to stay on to help teach the next generation coming through.

First Lessons with Allan ‘Piper’ Cameron

I very well remember that in my first lesson, my pinkie finger couldn’t quite reach the bottom hole of the practice chanter. Allan suggested that I take the chanter home anyway, and see how I got on. If I still couldn’t reach by the following week, then we’d leave it for a year and then try again. I spent the week stretching that finger like nobody’s business! Come the following Wednesday, all was well, and my piping career began! By the age of eight I was ready to move up from the practice chanter to the full bagpipes, and the following year I joined the band. It was the beginning of a wonderful journey of music and friendship, as the band, full of young players like myself, began to climb up through the competition grades and within a decade we were crowned both Scottish and European champions and were ranked within the top three pipe bands in the world. We toured throughout Europe, Canada, the USA and we even had a trip to Indonesia. They were great times and we made wonderful memories.

A Lost Tradition

All of this, however, involved the Great Highland Bagpipe – the loud, strident three-droned instrument which for several hundred years had become synonymous with Scotland. That was hardly surprising, as this was the only form of Scottish bagpipe that existed at the time. It hadn’t always been that way: smaller and quieter forms of the instrument, such as smallpipes, Border or Lowland pipes and reelpipes, all driven by bellows rather than by human lungs, had been part of the musical landscape for several centuries in the past, but had gone out of fashion and had become virtually extinct by the early twentieth century. There may have been some sets lurking under beds and tucked away in lofts, but even the few that had found their way into museums were usually mis-labelled as either uillean pipes from Ireland or Northumbrian pipes from the north of England. But in fact, they were neither: they were actually the last surviving remnants of a lost tradition.

The Revival Begins

The early 1980s saw the beginnings of a revival of these smaller, bellows-blown bagpipes here in Scotland, and the resurgence of interest in them has been immense in the intervening years. I got my first set soon after the revival began, and I’m lucky enough to spend a lot of my time now teaching these across Scotland, in Europe and in many parts of the USA. They are gaining in popularity all the time and there can be no doubt that the revival has been a major success, and these bellows pipes have taken their place once again in the carrying stream of living heritage.

The pitch and relatively low volume of Scottish bellows pipes make them more suitable for playing with other instruments than their louder Highland cousins, and so they have been enthusiastically welcomed into the wider traditional music scene both here in Scotland and well beyond. The fingering style is compatible with that of the highland pipes, although a few subtle adjustments to technique can certainly help to get the best out of these instruments. Because this was a severed tradition, a good deal of the detail regarding how they might have been played before their disappearance has been lost, and our knowledge and understanding of exactly how techniques, style, tempos and repertoire were transmitted between generations is scanty to say the least. That can be refreshing, however, as it means there are no rules that must be obeyed!

It is wonderful to see so many young people taking up the Scottish bellows pipes, and to witness them taking the instrument in various musical directions. Teaching and transmission is alive and well once again, with an emphasis on both ear-learning and use of written scores. There is a healthy corpus of new compositions emerging, while older manuscripts and collections are not being forgotten by any means. They are being performed in pub sessions, in folk bands, in dance halls and on major concert stages, their versatility allowing them to add positively to many musical genres.

In short, the bellows bagpipe tradition of Scotland is no longer reviving, but rather it has revived. It is an active, thriving, living tradition once more, and in my view, it is now here to stay!

Living Heritage Update: The Scottish Piping Centre has recently submitted ‘Scottish Bagpiping’ to the UNESCO UK Living Heritage list in the ‘Performing Arts’ category of Scotland’s Living Heritage. To see what’s been submitted, you can visit livingheritage.unesco.org.uk

Written by Gary West. 

Secret marriages, hand-crafted love notes, and carefully chosen tokens of affection – six hundred years ago, these were the kinds of Valentine’s Day customs one might have been privy to.
Emerging from a weaving of Roman, pagan and Christian traditions, Valentine’s Day has shifted and been reshaped over centuries, with many Scottish customs long held and observed.

Today, though heavily commercialised, the heart of the day remains: an offering of love, intention and generosity.

Here, we share some of these traditions, alongside Scottish tales of love, romance and how it compares to the 14th of February we know today.

Traditions & Customs

Imagine this. Instead of swiping right on someone you fancy, you wake up on the 14th of February and the first unmarried man/woman you encounter becomes your Valentine. This is just one of the many traditional, more superstitious Scottish customs that used to be about, and would play a part in aligning you with a (potential) match.

A similar custom was that of name-drawing – this meant that young unwed men and women wrote their name on a bit of paper, placed them in a hat and each drew one of them out. If one name was read out three times, it meant a marriage was on the cards.

As you can see, there is a bit of a pattern here – leaving your love-life up to luck, destiny and the fate of the universe. Not to mention your local community’s involvement in affairs of the heart.

Along with these rituals, there were some more meaningful traditional tokens of affection that are embraced around Valentine’s day. Some examples included,

• Luckenbooth Brooches
  • Often worn by Scottish women for protection from harm and evil spirits, these were commonly given as a gift from a mother to her daughter. But also, the Luckenbooth would be gifted from a man to his love as a token of protection and loyalty.
• Scottish Love Quaich
  • Dating back centuries to the Highland clans, this small, shallow bowl symbolised unity and trust. It featured prominently in Scottish ceremonies, celebrations and commemorations, and continues to hold significance today, often used in wedding celebrations when couples tie the knot.

Ballads of Love & Longing

Beyond brooches, love in Scotland has long been carried on through song. For centuries, folk ballads told stories of devotion, heartbreak, reunion and longing often inspired by real people and real places.

Songs such as “Annie Laurie” spoke of unwavering admiration, while “Ae Fond Kiss”, by Robert Burns in 1791, captured the sorrow of parting lovers with tenderness and peace. In the Highlands and Islands, Gaelic songs like “Mo Rùn Geal Òg” expressed deep affection and aching separation, their melodies passed from voice to voice across generations.

These songs were not simply entertainment; they were declarations. In times when distance kept lovers apart, music became a way to preserve feeling. Sung by firesides, at ceilidhs, they kept the romance alive.

In Reflection

Though the way we celebrate Valentine’s Day has changed – from superstitions and thoughtful tokens, to online messages, teddy bears and wrapped bouquets – the essence remains familiar. Whether drawn from a hat, discovered by chance on a February morning, or chosen with careful thought, love has always been about intention.

Perhaps that is what connects us most to those who came before us. Six hundred years on, while the rituals may differ, the desire to express affection, loyalty and hope endures.