My first whistle was a Clarke original in D, 1995
How did I get it? That’s the most interesting part of the story. I had a know-it-all girlfriend in the early-90’s who started draging me around to see the Flying Fish Sailors and Clandestine and other small folk bands. I didn’t really have an interest in going, though I had been exposed to this kind of music since I was a small child via the Texas Renaissance Festival. After actually stopping to listen (at the festival, I was always girl-chasing or shopping or something that prevented me from listening to the music) I became positively enchanted by Joe Limbeck’s (Flying Fish Sailors) playing. I had an irresistable compulsion to play that same instrument.
When I approached Joe at a show (timidly, as I didn’t know him) and asked him what he was playing, his reply: “It’s expensive”. (It was an Abell D, I’ve later learned). I don’t know if he was just being unhelpful on purpose, or assumed that of course I knew it was a whistle, and was asking the brand.
Now, I call my girlfriend at the time a “know-it-all” for a good reason. when I lamented ever learning what that instrument was and/or learning to play it, she said she knew what it was and got me a cream colored Yamaha recorder for my birthday. I struggled with it for a while, and learned to play “Strawberry Fields” on it, but never really got good at it. I put it away after less than a year.
In 1994, I met another girl, and we became friends. During one of our conversations, I lamented that I’d always had a desire to make music, and recounted all of my failed attempts, such as playing bass guitar in junior high, keyboards in high school, etc. I pulled out the recorder out of the closet and played a crappy rendition of that beatles tune. She laughed and told me the difference between a recorder and a tinwhistle. She got me a Clarke original tinwhistle shortly thereafter.
I took to the whistle like a duck to water, playing several hours a days (I was living on the money I made from selling some software patents, and didn’t actually have a job). I’d play until my lip stuck to the fipple and would tear my skin and bleed when I pulled it away. I was obsessed in an unhealthy way, and still am 
Needless to say, I broke up with the know-it-all girlfriend and married the girl that gave me the tinwhistle.
I bought my second whistle after 6 months. I had just started finding out about other whistle brands, and the Clarke’s breath requirements were killing me (I was a smoker then). So I got a Shaw. :roll:
That original whistle has been lost to time (I’ve sat on, stepped on, lost, and tweaked to death maybe a dozen Clarke originals)
After the Shaw, I got a sweetone. Now that was beginner heaven. That is the whistle I still reocmmend to beginners today. It may not be the best instrument in terms of tone, but it was so easy to control in both octaves, it was wonderful to play.
I own maybe 30 or 40 whistles now. Hard to say. My whistle bag holds 7, and play all of the “bag whistles” regularly. In addition to the bag whistles, I play my Hoover CPVC all the time while my family is asleep…so 8 regularly.
I’d actually own less whistles now if I had my druthers, but the cheapies I never play are so hard to get rid of for enough money to make it worthwhile, so they accumulate. I can’t bring myself to throw them away, even if I don’t play them. I occasionally give one away.
