A PIPING club want to push ahead with a competition despite knowing it could be axed at any moment due to government restrictions.

Caledonia Piping Club are aiming to get their Chanter event to allow kids the chance to take part after coronavirus wreaked havoc on the piping season.

Already their regular event ‘Festival of Juvenile Solo Piping’ in memory of co-founder Colin McCallum had to be cancelled due to the complexity of a mass piping festival.

Instead organisers hope that they can hold their Chanter competition within the assembly hall of the school ensuring that measures are followed.

Gerard McClumpha told the Herald: “We had to cancel our 18th year of the Festival of Juvenile Solo Piping, it’s the event we are most proud of.

“But what we want to do is have a Chanter competition instead by making it as safe as possible for everyone.

“We are awaiting on guidance that mass gatherings of at least 100 will be allowed. Right now some churches care capped at 50, we could work with that number.

“The idea would be to hold the event in the assembly hall at Auchenharvie coming straight from the car park.

“We have done away with catering and we would hold everything in just one room.”

The sheer scale of the solo piping competition involved five arenas with 150 pipers leaving the club with an impossible task.

Gerard added: “There’s no way we can control that. You can’t social distance with pipers.”

The club now faces an anxious wait to see how things unfold over the next three months, with the event planned to go ahead on Saturday, October 17.

By that point schools will have returned for over eight weeks, but Gerard is aware a lot can change over that time.

He said: “We are trying to get guidance, but we just have to wait. It’s extremely difficult.”