Crossroads and Characters
62. THE HIGHLAND GAMES.
A pipe band marches through the village to announce the opening of Dunning's Highland Games. This annual event was a much bigger affair than one might imagine. The Games had begun about 1898, and a newspaper 8 years later, noting that several Games elsewhere had been postponed for lack of patronage, reports Dunning had no such problem, with a record attendance of over 2,000. The Railway laid on special carraiges to bring spectators from Dundee, Perth and Glasgow. Competition in dancing and piping was reported to be especially keen. Indeed in other years Angus and Fife dancers engaged in lively fisticuffs after the judging. Before World War II, the Games too came to a contentious end: a farmer on whose pasture the event was held claimed a cow had broken a leg stepping into a hole caused by the Games.
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