SCOTLAND'S amazing range of historic musical instruments was on the menu at Cowdenbeath Rotary, when one of their new members, Norman Black, literally 'dug out' some amazing facts.

Norman stepped in at the last minute when a family emergency saw their scheduled speaker have to pull out but within a few minutes he was covering a wide area of Scotland's musical past.

He said that a lot of the basis of the country's musical history came from the Picts and there was strong evidence that small harps were being played from very early times.

Said Norman: "Harps of various sizes were something that regularly were used in the very early stages and of course fiddles followed later as did such things as whistles and pipes which most people will be very familiar with.

"Bagpipes became established by the 14th century and were something which came known as an instrument of war as they were played by Scottish armies as they went into battle, but also to play laments after the loss of life .

"The bagpipes has been an instrument which has stood the test of time and hundreds of years on are still played the world over."

Norman did recall that the pipes were banned for a spell as was the fiddle by the monarch of the day and church respectively, but back these came.

He said that Scotland's musical instruments continued to develop with the guitar, concertina, drums and penny whistle all playing their part to aid the country's writers produce some of the best songs in the world.

Norman added: "In the 19th and 20th centuries Scotland's folk music culture developed some remarkable writers and performers and this came from the communities themselves growing around industries such as fishing, ship building and mining and saw a whole range of well known songs and tunes written and performed.

"An example was performed at our last meeting when Willie and David Hershaw gave an excellent insight to the music of Joe Corrie who came from the mining industry of this area."

Norman concluded by playing on the guitar and singing a few songs concluding with Dougie McLean's 'Caledonia'.