A Healesville resident is now the proud owner of a new world record, alongside 373 others.
Walter Skilton was one of 374 pipers who descended upon Fed Square in Melbourne on Wednesday 12 November to mark the arrival of AC/DC in the city with a rendition of ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll)’.
Mr Skilton said he started playing the bagpipes when he was in school, so has been piping for over 55 years.
“My mom was born in Glasgow, but after I went to school, I did a bit oo piping and after that, on and off, and then when I came here I joined the Hawthorn Pipe Band,” he said.
“When I came to Healesville, the closest one was the Ringwood Highland Pipe Band so I joined them about 15 years ago, we’ve got 24 pipers practising of all different ages and different genders.
“We play pretty actively, we played the Maroondah Festival a couple of weeks ago, we played at the Lilydale market last weekend, we play music festivals and we played at the Balnarring Racecourse at their picnic day on the 26th of January.”
The congregation of pipers in Fed Square smashed the previous world record of 333 pipers in Sofia in Bulgaria, in 2012.
Mr Skilton said it was amazing to be in the middle of it.
“It’s a very simple tune to play, but just quite amazing to hear everyone play that together, it was very crowded but there was a passage that the bagpipers could move up,” he said.
“We were going to have two practice sessions, but the pipe manager there was pretty happy that it was going well, so we just had one practice session and then we played the real version.
“After we finished, the crowd just roared, I don’t know how many people but there but it was intense, but great.”
The iconic AC/DC were back in Melbourne for two shows at the MCG on the Wednesday and Sunday 16 November for their first shows in Australia in a decade.
Mr Skilton said members of the Ringwood Highland Pipe Band found out about the record attempt on the internet and they had people asking on the train if the record was broken.
“We got back on the train, and everybody was across it asking ‘Did you make it’ and whether we got the record, even a lady from the police asked and I said my wife had a recording,” he said.
“We just started the recording and it sounded just like when the actual pipes came in, it was amazing to hear.
“I felt so privileged to be part of that.”
