Bill Hedworth

Hedworth was born into a family business, building racing skiffs on the Tyne, but trained as a pattern maker, and as a young man played first classical piano and then violin.

This variety of skills meant that he was well qualified to attempt the manufacture of a number of different musical instruments over the years, as well as numerous other items, from church silver to furniture and coffins.

The first Northumbrian pipes he heard were played by Tom Clough, at a demonstration after a competition, but it was around the late 1940s before he decided to try to make a set.

One of his metalwork pupils turned out to be Alan Hall, then the secretary of the NPS, and he allowed Bill to measure his own set.

Towards the end of his long life he made fewer pipes, partly because his favoured metal, nickel silver, became almost impossible to obtain; but until his death he never ceased doing craft work, to the consternation of friends and visitors who saw only his shaking hands and sharp tools.