Post Memories: Story of Dagenham Girl Pipers told by voices from the past

Books about Dagenham Girl Pipers (Image: Archant)

“I thought it was a silly idea – I said only Scotsmen can play bagpipes,” was the reaction to a congregationalist minister’s suggestion of an all-female bagpipe band in 1930.

But Dagenham Girl Pipers co-founder Peggy Iris gave it a go nonetheless, living to see the “silly idea” change her life and provide the world with decades of music ahead of her death last month.

Peggy’s life was celebrated as historians, fans and relatives of ex-pipers joined an archive showcase at Valence House in Dagenham on Thursday, with The Dagenham Girl Pipers author Linda Rhodes comparing the band’s history to a fairytale.

“I think of it as a Cinderella story,” she said. “They went from the streets of Dagenham in the depression to mingling with the stars.”

From their first professional performance in Tottenham Court Road, London, in 1932, the band’s career took them to Nazi Germany, communist Hungary and Africa, Peggy’s favourite continent.

Linda told fans how the “Spice Girls of their time” would bed down behind sheets hanging from trees and sleep outdoors, with Peggy joking they were making Rev Joseph Graves’s “pipe dream a reality”.

Among the enthusiasts was John Blake, 68-year-old nephew of piper Dorris Warren, who joined the group in the 1950s. The historian, who lives in North Road, Chadwell Heath, said Peggy deserved far more recognition.

“I think it was a pity she never got more than a British Empire Medal,” he said. “It’s quite emotional watching these videos back because when I was a child they would very often come out and practise in the street. This brings back a lot of those memories.”

And organist Rosemary Rogers, 77, recalled how she saw Peggy play at Dagenham Parish Church in 2005 at the memorial service for Edith Turnbull, the first girl to join the band before settling, and dying, in America.

“I thought I was playing the organ for a funeral – I hadn’t a clue the lament was going to be played by Peggy Iris,” she said. “When I heard I thought: ‘She must be getting on.’

“But you needn’t have worried. She must’ve been in her mid-eighties and she played flawlessly.

“It gave you goosebumps. It was such a clear, beautiful sound – she was an expert.”

Although the band stopped being a professional touring outfit in 1968, the pipers continued to play and in January 2000 Peggy reunited with 12 founding members at Dagenham Civic Centre after Rev Graves suggested they pledge to do so while on tour as teenagers.

At the exhibition, archives revealed how marriage and engagements were banned on tour after manager David Land lost 11 pipers while on tour in 1954, with Linda calling the band “pioneers of showbusiness”.