David Campbell

PIPER Rikki Evans is on course to set a Guinness World Record after playing his bagpipes for 24 hours.

The 28-year-old from Aberdeen celebrated his achievement with a sip of champagne on Thursday.

He played from 11am on Wednesday until 1pm on Thursday.

Guinness rules allowed Rikki to have a 30 second pause every 2 minutes.

He accumulated a five minute break for every hour of completed piping and Rikki intended to take 10 minute break every 2 hours.

He undertook the challenge to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of famed piper Gordon Duncan. Rikki will also raise cash for charities including CLAN Cancer Support, Cash For Kids, The Gordon Duncan Memorial Trust, Portlethen and District Pipe Band and The National Piping Centre.

The piper is now waiting on Guiness confirming his new World Record.

Rikki Evans said: “It was really, really good actually.”

“Obviously it was tiring throughout the night but you could say I got my second wind towards the end.

“The hardest part was at during the night, at around 3 or 4am when there was no-one around and also at the end when there were lots of folk about that was tough as well.”

“We won’t get official confirmation from Guinness for a few months but we will send all the evidence away and I think we should have done it and set a new record.”

“We had a few technical issues to start with but it was fine after that.

The event was streamed around the world with over 1,500 people tuning in during the 26hr challenge.