John McIlwraith (commentator)
Encyclopedia
John McIlwraith was a Scottish
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

-Canadian humorist, radio broadcaster, newspaper columnist, and commentator.

Early life & Career

McIlwraith was born in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, Scotland, but moved to Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, as a young adult. His jobs included working as a coal-stoker on a ferry
Ferry
A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...

 operated by the Canadian Pacific Railway
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

.

McIlwraith hosted a morning radio program in Seattle and wrote columns for newspapers and magazines. From 1990 to 2001, he recorded commentaries for National Public Radio's All Things Considered
All Things Considered
All Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...

.

After Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....

 announced that it would begin offering a degree in the playing of bagpipes
Bagpipes
Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones, using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. Though the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe and Irish uilleann pipes have the greatest international visibility, bagpipes of many different types come from...

, McIlwraith commented that the bagpipe was created as an instrument of war, and should not be treated as a musical instrument. McIlwraith said:
The Scots are a race not noted for their music. The favorite instrument in Scotland is the piano accordion, followed by the fiddle. The next favorite would be the harmonica. Even the Scots consider the bagpipes to be an instrument of torture, of warfare, its practitioners huge, red-faced farmer types who have switched from pig sticking to bagpipe playing.

Bagpipes are a strange instrument. The only reason they were invented is the Scots needed some kind of noise to rally the clans when the English crossed the border. They could have bought a bell or a whistle, but being a thrifty people they took a pig's bladder and stuck a reed in it and the rest is history. For some reason, great masses of people have mistaken bagpipes for a musical instrument.


After each commentary, the "All Things Considered" host noted that McIlwraith lived on a houseboat
Houseboat
A houseboat is a boat that has been designed or modified to be used primarily as a human dwelling. Some houseboats are not motorized, because they are usually moored, kept stationary at a fixed point and often tethered to land to provide utilities...

 in San Diego, California
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...

.

Other commentaries by McIlwraith included:
  • Doing It in the Closet (December 20, 2007): Part of "Tinsel Tales," a series of Christmas stories.
  • Jesse the Incorrigible: My Grandson (December 30, 1997): Recounting his experiences with a grandson suffering from attention deficit disorder.
  • A Party for an Endangered Organ (March 27, 2001): Recorded just before undergoing surgery for stomach cancer.


McIlwraith's death resulted from complications arising from Lewy dementia. He was married twice. He and his first wife, Bridie, and his second wife, Dixie, had four children altogether.
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