Highland Fling

   

The Highlands of Scotland, home of Rob Roy, Jamie Fraser, MacBeth and William Wallace. These and other larger than life historical and fictional men come from a land that is larger than life.
The Highlands are unlike any other place we have been. Simply put you have to go there to understand it. The landscape is as varied as the people, as complex as the history of Scotland and as unpredictable as the weather. It is an area of the country that has known great sorrow and suffering yet vehemently retains a spirit of pride and individualism. The people are practical and self-sufficient; happy to sit for hours to tell the stories of their villages and clans.
     We stayed a week on a croft, a remodeled farm house, in Ardgay surrounded by fields of grazing sheep about an hour north of Inverness. During that week we visited a Castle www.dunrobincastle.co.uk/ with beautiful gardens, took a cruise on Loch Ness,(no sighting of Nessie that morning) https://www.jacobite.co.uk/ and visited a scotch distillery https://www.balblair.com/.

 John was even able to golf at the local course www.bonarbridgeardgaygolfclub.co.uk/ . It was 9 holes so he played it twice. Clubs were available for rent so he didn't have to bring his for this trip. We attempted a day trip to Orkney island but predictably unpredictable weather prevented the ferry from sailing that day.
  Of course we had to include a visit to Culloden battlefield, site of the end of the Jacobite uprising and “Bonnie Prince Charlie's” claim to the throne of Scotland.https://www.nts.org.uk/Visit/Culloden/. The visitor center did a tremendous job presenting the information about the battle from both the Scottish and English perspective using parallel timelines, film and artifacts. The moor upon which the battle took place is available for visitors to walk and see markers where specific clans fought and died in an unsuccessful quest for independence.


As an aftermath of Culloden the English government set up policies that were unfavorable to the Highlanders ;prohibiting the wearing of clan tartans or the playing of bagpipes and the Clearances-the removal of families from their lands- were some of the ways King George II tried to destroy Scottish culture. To enforce these policies Fort George was established https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/fort-george/ .This Fort continues to be in active use and was one of the locations where Allied forces practiced beach landings for the D-Day invasion in 1944. Ironically the fort is also the location of the Highlanders military museum http://www.thehighlandersmuseum.com/ . The English government realized that the best way to control the Highlanders was to use them. The wearing of tartans and the use of bagpipes was acceptable if it was in service of King and Country. This led to the establishment of many Highland brigades in the British military. These units were and still are sent throughout the world as they are known to be victorious, even in the harshest of conditions.

The Highlands are a special place. The winds that come up unexpectedly seem to carry the voices of the people who fought and died to live life on their terms in a land that is harsh and beautiful and completely unforgettable. These lyrics from A Scottish Soldier seem to say it best:

There was a soldier, a Scottish soldier
Who wandered far away and soldiered far away
There was none bolder with good broad shoulder
He fought many affray, and fought and won

He’d seen the glory, he’d told the story
Of battles glorious and deeds victorious
But now he’s sighing, his heart is crying
To leave those green hills of Tyrol

Because those green hills are not highland hills
Or the island hills, they’re not my land’s hills
And fair as these green foreign hills may be
They are not the hills of home