As the sun sets on Good Friday, the sound of bagpipes will ring out across Oamaru.
For the second year in a row, the North Otago Highland Pipe Band will gather at Lookout Point at Easter to perform a variety of songs, concluding with Amazing Grace, at the request of a former Oamaru man who now lives in the United States.
The man, who wanted to remain anonymous, said his family lived in Oamaru in the 1950s and ’60s and he continued to follow the North Otago town with interest.
He approached the pipe band last year to perform Amazing Grace as a tribute to his mother and the town he grew up in.
"Amazing Grace was my mum’s favourite hymn and a few years ago watching a YouTube video of bagpipers playing Amazing Grace, I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if the Highland band could perform the hymn at sunset on Good Friday’," he said.
Growing up in Oamaru, he and his siblings were "blessed with a superb primary education" at South School.
While his family no longer lived in Oamaru, they had been sponsoring a Christmas dinner party for teachers and staff at Fenwick Primary School for more than 20 years, and in more recent years had also sponsored a graduation party for the year 6 class.
He had fond childhood memories of the North Otago Highland Pipe Band, remembering them starting up their instruments for performances "like some heroic creature awakening and then swirling, twirling down the main street".
His family was "so pleased" the band had embraced the project and made it an annual event.
North Otago Highland Pipe Band snare drummer Jennifer Gower said the band was looking forward to this year’s Good Friday performance.
Last year’s event attracted more than 100 people to the lookout, and the band had received a lot of positive feedback from the community, Mrs Gower said.
The band had decided to make it an annual event, whether the man who initiated it continued to make a donation to the band or not, she said.
However, he had offered to financially support the performance again this year.
The band would arrive at Lookout Point about 5pm, and start playing from about 5.30pm.
The bagpipers would perform a variety of traditional tunes, finishing about 6pm with Amazing Grace as the sun went down.
