‘Mom’ takes in the Worlds
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She could easily lay claim to being the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band’s biggest fan. With her two sons leading the band and five grandchildren playing in it, Annabelle Lee has a little more at stake at Saturday’s World Pipe Band Championships than most moms attending the competition.
Lee, the mother of Pipe Sergeant Jack Lee and Pipe Major Terry Lee, will be at Glasgow Green to watch her family compete for their third straight championship title.
It’s the first time since 1985 that she has been to the Worlds. That year, the band came second – its first major win.
“It was electric - a big deal then, their first big win over here, everyone was thrilled for them,” recalls the Surrey resident, who last year watched the competitions via the BBC’s first ever live stream coverage.
For years, Lee had joined friends and family gathered at Port Coquitlam’s Tartantown, managed by son Terry, to wait for reports from Glasgow Green from someone with a cell phone.
“It was time to come back and watch them play, they are on a roll and have done so well these past years. I’m excited to be here and support them.”
Lee says her sons have always been a determined pair who began Highland dancing and playing the pipes at an early age. “As soon as their hands were big enough to play, they started,” she recalls.
“Terry was the dancer. I remember that Jack had a very inspirational piping teacher. I think that’s what eventually gave him strong teaching skills.”
A typically Scottish family, Lee’s own mother was a Highland dancer. Her sons got an early interest in piping from their grandfather, who at one point played the pipes in an army band. The family came to B.C. from Manitoba and the children – the two boys and two sisters, Maureen and Moira - were raised in the Lower Mainland.
“I never had to ask them to practice – they practiced daily. It was always on their own. And they always wanted to practice in the kitchen because the acoustics were better – so I was constantly surrounded by their music.”
Jack became an accountant but decided to change careers and teach music full time. With 40-plus students he keeps a remarkably busy schedule, teaching on the road, at home, and to would-be pipers across the country and beyond via Skype – on top of attending to the band’s busy schedule.
His three sons Colin, John and Andrew, are also now in the Grade 1 band. So is brother Terry’s son Alistair, while niece Brittany is a drummer.
“They’re on top of the world right now, and I hope they keep going, they can if they keep up the practice,” mom Lee surmises. “They can pipe as long as they can breathe. They’ve worked hard to get here.
“I’ll have butterflies and I’ll be very anxious,” she adds, “but I simply say ‘strive for more’ if you didn’t do well today. I do know they’ll be doing their very best.”