Steve Ruffley (7:52)
Many times over the years when I played the pipes, I closed my eyes like a lot of pipers do. And you're not present. I'm in a forest or I'm at the side of a loch and all I can see is snow and high rise mountains. My name is Steve Ruffley. I am a great Highland bagpiper. I always had the love of, from a very early age, the bagpipes. Because of my heritage, my father is Scottish and therefore it was always in the blood. It's always been there. The pipes are a very unique instrument. No matter where you are in the world and you hear them They've got a distinct sound from the drones and the drones go something like, mmm, like that. And then you've got the chanter. What gives it that distinct high pitched sound. I moved to York in July 1996 to be with my family. I was 34. It's a Roman medieval walled city in the north of England. It's full of pubs and full of churches. I think one time they said there was 365 pubs and 52 churches within the city Wells. It's just a very vibrant and busy city is York. I immediately then seeked out to join a local pipe band and I found out there was one very, very close to me and I joined North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service pipe band. We're a full pipe band with a dozen pipers in the band and we all get together as a marching band and do venues up and down Yorkshire. Game shows, flower shows, St Patrick's Day parades, usually big audiences. I'm the quartermaster in the band, which I'm in charge of all the uniforms and making sure everybody looks absolutely spot on when it's all on. It does look absolutely what we call the dog's Natchez, you know. It was like two or three years after I came to York, I got up and running with another piper called Josh. He was 13 at the time and started to practice upstairs in this very old building, this St. Lawrence's Club, what you would call a social club. The building was built in 17th or 18th century, a very large stone Georgian type building. We ended up going upstairs into this very large room with big heavy curtains, big old radiators where there was a big full size nooker table. So we've been practicing up in St. Lawrence's in this room and we'd been there for weeks on end. On this particular evening we came into the room, the room was really cold and just getting dark, so I had to put the light on, which started to play. And just as we started to march around the room, as we always did, this light bulb, just completely exposed, exploded. We both dropped to the floor. We were near to the light as well, about four feet away. There was just glass everywhere because it was a large old light bulb. We were quite alarmed and quite shocked. And then we started to laugh, both of us, through nerves or whatever. I don't know. The very next time we were in that room, two, three days after the light bulb exploded and we were marching round, we were in there for quite some time. 20 minutes, 25 minutes. It was very warm in the club, but in that room, it became very cold and I felt as if I was being watched, you know, it was like walking into an electric field. I started to see in the corner of my eye, the heavy light above the snooker table was moving very slowly and it's on heavy chains. So this thing takes a lot of energy to move this thing. It was swinging from left to right, left to right, left to right, and it got stronger to the point where I thought the thing was going to come off the wall. All my hair on the back stood up, all my hair on my hands stood up. Josh looked at me, he shook his head and he went, is this really happening? One of them looks. And I thought, we need to get out of here. We went downstairs and we were like shocked. Josh wouldn't go back up to the room and then he said he didn't want to practice in that room no more because he was frightened. So we decided that we were not going to play that night again. We didn't tell anybody about that. We kept that one to ourselves because how can you explain to somebody this light fitting was violently going from left to right when you think the thing's going to come off the ceiling. And thinking really wouldn't believe me. About seven days after the light fitting, on 16 April 2005, I'd finished work. I walked with Josh. He lived on the same street as me. We walked together with our pipes and our pipe bags, laughing, joking, very jovial, and we came into the room again to do practice. We didn't feel anything untowards at all. When we went in the room again and we assembled our pipes together and I tuned Josh up and I tuned my own up and we're of happy enjoyment as we do, and started playing Scotland the Brave, quite a well known tune to all pipe bands and to the military. It's a very significant, powerful tune for glory as in battle. I think every pipe band in the world plays it. When we started to march round, we then got to the corner and we both stopped. We'd gone through the tune once and we were going back into it. And as we're doing that, about within 15, 20 seconds of us striking up, I felt as if somebody was stood to me left or to me right and it was like there was another piper playing with me and Josh, but there was nobody there. All my hair on, my hands on the back all stood up as if I was being electrified. But what the hell is going on? What am I hearing? And he played with me for about 30, 40 seconds in perfect Unison as well. I was stood stationary and Josh was looking at me, directly at me. And he was like, with his jaw open and his eyes were like saucers. And he just threw his pipes onto the table and stood at the door as if to say, get out of that room now. I then dropped my pipes and left. He said to me, stevie, did you not hear that? I said, aye, I hear that as well, Josh. Josh was very frightened. He said, steve, we need to get down to the bottom of this. I then spoke to my wife. Bloody hell. I said, you won't believe what's happened in the club tonight. And she goes, oh, what's happened now? I described, like, what happened. She goes, wow, this needs to be told. She had a friend who was a medium and had done a lot of work here in northern England, and we got hold of her within days of it happening. And she said, right, we need to go back to the club. And she met me the next day. This was about 6:00 at night. Only me and the psychic medium was in the room. We went into the room where it happened. She was all in black and she had long black hair and she wore like a talisman round her neck. And she lit all these candles around me and did the incense and then told me to stand in the center of the room, not say anything, and strike my pipes up and play. Within, what, five, ten seconds of me playing. She said, stop. He's entered the room. He's here. And she had candles lit all around me in a circle. And she said, he stood right beside you, Steve. He's behind you. Oh, I've got goosebumps even telling you about this. Described him from head to foot. He's a big Highlander, young lad, early 20s. She said, he has his pipes in his hand, full tartan, played, kilt, beard. He's got this big bonnet on his head with a white thing at the side. And I went, bloody hell. I know what that is. That's the Jacobite rose. It's a symbol of what they wore in the bonnet during the 45, 1745 rebellion. She said, he's smiling his head off and he wants to connect with this. Stephen thought, bloody hell, I've got a jacket, bike, piper trying to communicate with me. Right, get your head round this, Steve. So I thought, who the hell is he? And then she said, I've got a name. I got her name. She said, R E, A D. Name was Reid. When she told me that, I went, oh, my God. Oh, my God. I had a good idea. It could Be. When I joined the pipe band, I was told about the piper called Piper James Reed, executed for playing the pipes in York since 1746, when he was condemned to death. They said the instrument of war is the bagpipes. All the other pipers were pardoned and transported to Canada and America, but James Reid was made as an escape goat, political scapegoat, and he was the only piper, as we know of, in the world to be hung, drawn and quartered. I knew straight away then it was him trying to communicate with me. I was so blown away, I cried. Me and Josh, we continued to go to the club at St. Lawrence's and we practicing for many years after, and we didn't have any encounters, but we always felt we were being watched. Many years later, I approached Mark Graham, who's in charge of the original Ghost Walk of York. The Ghost Walk, they meet here in York, and Mark takes around the historical city different encounters of local ghost stories, various special occasions. I would come along and play a tune dressed as James Reid himself. I got the whole thing made, so it's like a gray, blue, green tartan and the Jacobite bonnet with a Stuart emblem on the side as well. So it was about October 2012. Mark said, I want you to go to the Mansion House, the Lord Mayor's residence. You've got quite a large audience. Do a bit of piping and I'll tell the story of what happened to James Reid. I said, yes, of course. In any event, I always go early to make sure my pipes are properly in tune and I'm relaxed. So I went along and I met the caretaker, Richard Pollard, his name is. I've got about 10 minutes spare. I go up one flight of stairs and I'm into, like, a Victorian dining room, and everything's set out in prestige, crystal chandeliers and stuff. And on the wall, there's a massive oil painting. And I said to Richard Pallet, is he the only picture in the whole place of the Lord Mayor of York? He says, believe it or not, Steve, yes. Why? I said, because he was the third person who condemned James Reed to death. I was dressed as James Reid in the Lord Mayor of York Mansion House. And I'm looking at the man who condemned him to death. And I said to Richard, this is payback time. People started to arrive and they're all upstairs in the banquet hall at the top of Mansion house. There's about 200 people, and I'm at the bottom of the stairs and the lights were very dim. The caretakers at the top of the room were the lantern and everybody was seated in the boardroom with lights and everything, so they didn't see this. And Richard said, come up the stairs as slowly as possible, Steve, and strike up the bottom of the stairs. So I did. I was going upstairs playing, which is quite hard to do, but I did. I came up one step at a time. I was playing the Green Hills of Tyrol. It's basically the soldier song. It goes da da dum. So it's a very hearty tune and there's about 150 steps and I was concentrating on playing and I'm watching my feet the same. I could see Richard Pollock at the top of the stairs with a lantern on and everybody's inside with the doors closed. And I get to the top of the stairs and his face was like, as if there's a. There's something going on. He opens up the doors, the light full. They've got the full lights and everybody's waiting for me to come in. And I tells my story about James Reid. After I told the story, I felt good and I felt really happy about the whole thing. And soon as I came to the door, Richard came running over to me and said, you must know this and I must tell you something. Something has happened coming up them stairs, I cannot explain. There was a light blue aura completely around you and it did not go away until them doors opened. And I said, what you on about a light blue aura? He said, it was completely surrounded you from your feet all the way around your body. And I can't explain it. I was totally oblivious was the word that something supernatural was going on. And it was as if James Reid was with me that evening. Many years after that incident, round about September 2014, two days after the Scottish referendum when they had the vote for independence in Scotland, I was doing the original Ghost Walk of York with Mark Green with a ghost walk. I would usually do it about three or four times a year. I was just about to leave at the back of the York Castle Museum where we do it about after 8:00, 20, 100 hours and a lot of activity going on. Catering wagons outside, lights on, there was something going on. The fire exit doors opened and light came upon me and I thought I was going to be told off because I was making a lot of noise playing the bagpipe and this well dressed gentleman in a full dinner suit stands, smiling his head off at me and he said, piper, would you like to come inside and play for the audience? I said, what you talking about? Come and play for the Audience I said, you can't just say, come in here. And I said. I said, I need paying. You know, that's what pipers do. And he goes, you be paid well, piper, you'll be paid well. So I goes, okay. So I follows him. I said, I've got 40 minutes. So I walked down this passageway, and inside is the Castle Museum, which is York Prison. And they've done it up the cobbled street as it was from Victorian York. And inside the street was like a full banquet. People with kilts on, people in dinner suits, ladies with ball gowns. I was quite completely taken back because of the amount of people were there. The Lord mayor of York was there in his full regalia. The high sheriff was there of York. The town crier was there in his full regalia. I thought, wow, what the hell's going on here? And it was the York Chamber of Commerce annual dinner, which is held in significant places up and down the country in the town crier. And he gave me a full introduction as well, going, oh, yay. Oh, yay. This is Piper Steve, roughly, to be asked to pipe at this event. Just very off the cuff, very quickly. I just thought, well, what am I going to play? So I just struck up. And I was going to play Green Hills Battles, or like I always do. And so I struck the pipes up and I was going to play a tune. And then I immediately felt something had came into me and started playing Cock of the north, the tune that I don't know, it's like any musician. You play a tune, you gotta know it well. But I didn't know it well enough to play in front of old dignitaries and stuff. And I thought, why am I playing a tune that I don't really know? But I'm playing it. My subconscious was telling me, stop and change. But this voice came into me. It was a Scottish voice in my head saying, carry on, remand, you'll be fine. Carry on remand, you'll fine. There was like a war in my head. My voice was saying to the other voice, what's going on? Stop. When he was saying, no, carry on with your man. You'll be fine. Piper James Reed, he effectively took over my whole body playing. He was moving my fingers in time, as it should have been. And I could see what was going on because everybody was, like, ecstatic. The people were banging on the tables with glasses and the knives and forks. They were enjoying it so much. I didn't feel him leave until I was coming out of the room. And then I Felt something leaving me. I felt mentally drained. I immediately left. They gave me this much money as I was leaving and everybody was banging on tables, was leaving. They wanted me to come back shouting, more, more, more. Then the Lord Mayor of York actually came up to me and said, that was absolutely amazing what you've just done there. And I just laughed because I was in a rush to get back to see Mark at the pub. I walk into the pub and my wife's there and with Mark, and I just said, you won't believe what's happened, Mark. And I told him, he said, I don't believe you. That's a bit far fetched to me. So I said, well, where do I get all this money from? And I poured all this money on top of this table in the publisher. And he just started to laugh and my wife said, why would he tell lies? These things happen to Stephen. The very next day I started to realize, I thought, let's see if I can play this tune. So I got my practice chant there and I started to play this tune. It was all out of tune, it wasn't right, it was a mess. It took me many weeks later to get the tune right. I then went back to the York Castle Museum as it was York Prison, because I was that convinced. I want I needed to know more. I spoke to the manageress at the time. I told her briefly about the Jacobites being imprisoned there and James Reid being part of that. And they would walk around in a circle, but they were all chained up together to get some exercise. And so I said, which room would that be? She said, this room. I went, oh my God, don't tell me anymore. And I started to cry. I got very emotional. I said, this is the room where I played on Saturday night. He stepped into my body and he played. I said, well, his energies would be still here today, wouldn't they? And she said, of course, of course there would be. After many years of historical research, I have found out every situation where I had encounters was directly linked to James Reid himself. The first one being St. Lawrence's was so close to the city walls where his head would have been placed. The second would have been the Lord Mansion House because he was one of the judges who condemned James Reid to death. The last one was York Prison where James Reid was imprisoned for six months before he was executed at Tyburn. And when we found out he was in Lord Olgavy Regiment, when I looked at the muster roll, there's the same surname as myself. And then I found out they were my direct ancestors in the same regiment as James Reid. I still feel his presence today at times when I'm playing the pipes as if he stood right beside me. I was very, very privileged and honored that James Reed came through to me and did what he did and he's at peace. I know he's at peace because he knows the love of the pipes between me and him. He was using me as to bring peace to him through me and I'm doing what I can in honour of James Reid.
