Contacting Bill Haneman

[nemethmik]

Hello fellow pipers. I haven't visited the forum for a long time. Bill Haneman used to be a very active member here. I tried to contact him via his email address. We used to exchange emails a lot for years. Do you have any information, if he is still in the pipe-making business? I'd appreciate your help tremendously, and I'd prefer private message.
All the best and Thank You, Miklos

[billh]

I'm here Miki.

Drowning in email these days so it sometimes takes more than one or two days to reply. Your email required some thought on my part.

Best regards,

Bill

[nemethmik]

Oh, brilliant, I am so happy. I was actually scared that something might have happened to you not beeing so active on the forum for a while. Now I am relieved, and in the meantime I've learned that you are terribly busy with the chores of Pipe Craft school. What an amazing possibility. Congratulations! I have a couple of ideas how can the Uilleann Pipe Makers Associacion could improve the entire pipe making business experience with a Certified Uilleann Pipe Maker. I had a lot of experience with a number of pipe makers, nearly all great people.
Take care and all the best, Miki

[Roger O'Keeffe]

A lot of discerning pipers will be delighted to hear that Bill has been absent from C&F and employing his time more usefully

[Roger O'Keeffe]

I was supposed to contact you over the summer myself, Bill, but all the time I was in IRL the weather was uncharacteristically good so I spent my time working in the garden instead (that weather was a manifestation of O'Keeffe's corollary to Murphy's Law, which states that even when things go right, they do so at the worst possible moment).

I won't add to your email backlog, and you're probably aiming to meet some end-year deadlines, but maybe you could let me know by phone/txt if, say, the third week in January would be a good time for me to drop out to you to discuss a plan of campaign for the restoration of the mongrel WRowsomoid set. Do you still have the chanter measurements, or were they on a computer drive that died?

R.

[oliver]

Hi Roger,
Been a long time. What do I hear ? You have a W. Rowsome set ??

[Roger O'Keeffe]

Not quite.

Before acquiring my Rogge concert set I had a set which I bought many years before in a woodworm-riddled box. The bellows are stamped "W Rousome", and Bill's measurements of the chanter bore seeemed consistent with it being a W Ro{u/w}some one. Several of the toneholes and the reed seat had been plugged and rebored. The other parts were made of different types of wood. Some may be W R-made. Some regulator keys are well-made, others more crude. That's why I call it the mongrel set.

I bought it in south Wexford, which is additional circumstantial evidence for the Rowsome connection, about 1974. It had been left pretty much unused for some 20 years: the seller wasn't a musician, but I heard that his father used play fiddle and did minor repair jobs on various instruments.

When I sorted out all the bits and pieces of wooden tubing in the box, I found that in addition to the pipes there was a fife and most of a flute.

The pipes need a lot of work to restore them to proper condition, but it seems a shame not to do so, especially given their probable, if uncertain, provenance.

I should mention that, apart from the Rogge set which I use in classes, I am the deliriously happy owner of a BillH slightly-south-of-B Coyne-based set which makes even my piping sound like music.

[rorybbellows]

I've learned that you are terribly busy with the chores of Pipe Craft school.

I hope somebody is teaching them how to fill in social welfare claim forms.

RORY

[oliver]

I should mention that, apart from the Rogge set which I use in classes, I am the deliriously happy owner of a BillH slightly-south-of-B Coyne-based set which makes even my piping sound like music.

I'd like to see that one. Could you by any chance post one or two pictures. Or I'll be interested to see it for real when I go to Eire next year !