PRINCESS Anne was accorded an unusual honour while on a visit to the Clyde submarine base at Faslane, in the Gare Loch in 1971: a tune on the pipes, written especially for the occasion.
The march, Faslane’s Welcome to Princess Anne, was played by its composer, Pipe Major Iain MacPherson, as she entered a hall where a dinner-dance was taking place. Mr MacPherson, whose brother, Donald, was executive director of Glasgow’s College of Piping, said: “It was my own idea and the Navy went along with it. The end product is a wee tune which the Princess can call her very own.” The march took him the best part of two weeks to complete.
While at Faslane the Princess visited the control room of HMS Renown, one of the Navy’s four nuclear-powered Polaris submarines, and boarded HMS Dreadnought, the first British submarine to surface at the North Pole. She spent the night on the royal train in a siding at Faslane before heading for Glasgow’s Queen Street, where she was welcomed (above) by Lord Provost Sir Donald Liddle (centre). In Glasgow she opened newspaper offices and was presented with a paper-knife designed at Glasgow School of Art.
The following day, Saturday, saw her on private engagements; and such is the range of events in the average Lord Provost’s diary that, 24 hours after shaking a royal hand, Sir David found himself opening a grand bazaar at a church in Ruchazie.
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