Yet Canon Mel of the Scottish Episcopalian Church was born thousands of miles away from his present Black Isle parish.

However, his home town of Pictou in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia has never been short of Scottish influences since the first wave of Highland immigrants arrived from Loch Broom aboard the Hector in 1773.

Revealing that he came from a county with seven pipe bands, Mel added: "People complain that they come over to Scotland and never see a piper. You can hardly walk down the street in Halifax, the province capital, without seeing one."

Young Mel did not even need to leave the house to find a piper. His father also played the pipes, though his main musical interest was the drums, and his uncle was a piper in the Canadian army killed in Normandy shortly after D-Day. However, Mel's grandfather hated the sound of the bagpipes, at least until his grandson started playing, just as he always denied there was a French connection in the Langille family until Mel stared learning French.

"He told me I should be learning my own language — which of course was Gaelic," Mel added.

Though the Episcopal Church is part of the Anglican community, the church has a strong history in the north of Scotland. However, the Highland "Pisckies" support for the Jacobites led to the persecution and suppression of the church after Culloden. Many of the Highlanders who arrived in Pictou on the Hector were Episcopalians seeking somewhere they could practice their religion in safety.

"If you go into Inverness cathedral there is a famous painting of a priest giving a blessing through the bars at Stonehaven gaol," Mel pointed out.

"After Culloden, many Episcopalians were imprisoned. Some of them were hung because the authorities regarded them as Jacobites."

Mel was baptised into the Episcopalian Church a couple of weeks after he was born, but as he became a teenager, he became disillusioned with church life.

"I was frustrated by the lack of charity within the church," he explained.

"People coming back from communion were stabbing each other in the back. What we were learning in Sunday school wasn't being reflected in the realities of church life and I decided I couldn't be part of that any more."

However, Mel's aunt, who was also his godmother, persuaded him to go ahead with his confirmation, and the night before, Mel had what he describes as a conversion experience where he was conscious of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

"Just a couple of years later, I felt that I was called to be a priest, which surprised me more than anyone else," Mel said.

He was ordained a deacon in 1982 and a priest in 1983 while still in his early 20s, something that was not unusual in Canada, yet in Scotland at the age of 51 he finds himself considerably younger than most priests here, even though he has been ordained longer.

At St Mary's University in Halifax, where he studied French and Classical History, he found another big influence in a Catholic chaplain Father John Mills, and Mel would often make guest appearances at Mass playing his pipes while his then girlfriend played the organ.

He would also help out Mass at the ecumenical theological college he went on to attend, also in Halifax, and where he would distribute communion, leading one Catholic priest to joke: "The only one we can trust with the keys is an Episcopalian!"

For 20 years, Mel served as a priest in his native Nova Scotia and though there was a suggestion he take over an Anglican parish in London, he had no interest in working in a big city. Yet on the same website, he saw a vacancy for a parish in Sutherland.

Canon Mel Langille who competes in piping as well as teaching the instrument. Gary Anthony

"It made Sutherland sound like it was on the dark side of the moon. I thought nobody is going to be interested in that," Mel said. "Initially, neither was I, but every time I sat down at the computer, I called it up again. I started thinking that maybe someone was trying to tell me something."

So Mel eventually wrote to Scotland and received a reply from then bishop John Crook telling him that the Episcopalian Church needed people who could help emphasise the Scottishness of the church and its Highland history.

"I wrote back and told him: 'I can't speak about the Clearances much, but as far as my family is concerned, Culloden happened this morning, so I understand the need for healing'," Mel said.

Mel also included in his CV his involvement in the wider community, including of course piping, both as a teacher and in competition.

"I'm told the diocese secretary popped the CV on the bishop's desk and said: 'I think we have found our priest!'" Mel laughed.

So Mel came to Sutherland in 2003 — and within 36 hours of landing was recruited by the Sutherland Caledonian Pipe Band, becoming Pipe Major two years later. He also worked with Golspie High School Pipe Band and taught piping at local feis.

As priest-in-charge of the Episcopalian congregations of Brora, Dornoch, Kinlochbervie and Lairg, as well as interregnum priest-in-charge at Thurso and Wick for a period, most of the North of Scotland was his parish.

"I loved Sutherland," he said.

"The most beautiful people you could ever want to be with. It was awfully, awfully hard to answer the call to come here, but the people here have been so kind and understanding."

Mel moved to the Black Isle this summer and on 1st August was instituted Rector of St John's Church, Arpafeelie, and St Andrew's Church, Fortrose. He is also Synod Clerk, making him a Canon of St Andrew's Cathedral in Inverness. Less formally, he has also become diocesan piper.

For something with Mel's passion for history, the charge is almost perfect.

"The amount of history here is quite staggering," he said.

This includes Arpafeelie with its long tradition as a Gaelic and Jacobite church and Cromarty from where hundreds of Highlanders sailed to the New World, many of them arriving in Mel's own home town of Pictou.

For Mel, who sees no contradiction between being Canadian and at the same time being Scottish, moving to the Highlands is very much coming home. As he put it: "I'm proudly Canadian and proudly Nova Scotian, but when I told my mother I was working on coming over here, she said to me: 'Ever since you were in diapers, your heart has been in Scotland.

"'Maybe the time has come for the rest of you to follow.'"

c.macleod@inverness-courier.co.uk

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