Blair Castle

Blair Castle, Blair Atholl, near Pitlochry, Scotland.  Home of the Dukes of Atholl, who have Royal permission to have the only private army in Britain.  The Atholl Highlanders are now mostly mustered for ceremonial occasions. 

The current, 12th, Duke of Atholl doesn't even live in Scotland but is South African, following the 9th and 10th Dukes being childless (the 10th never being married). The 11th Duke was tracked to South Africa, but only lived 2 years after taking up the title. 

Back in the day, the Drummond family were supporters of the Jacobite cause.  They also volunteered to take their army to fight against the 'insurgents' in the American War of Independence. 

Last century, one of their ladies was the first female Scottish MP.  The castle has been used to house a First World War hospital, and to care for the pupils of an English school during the Second World War. 

G and I travelled 37 miles up the A9 to visit today, and were glad we did, as it was beautiful and amazing.  Many of the other visitors had travelled a great deal further than we had.  We heard American, Australian, Dutch, German and Japanese voices discuss the furniture, pictures and artefacts. 

While we drove back home, via Pitlochry where G dropped into the Whisky Shop to pick up a rare malt, I listened to several discussions on the radio about how we should stop our young Moslem people from going to Syria to join Isis. 

Allow me please, to be completely non-PC.  Speaking as a female parent and grandparent, I'd like to grab those stupidly deluded women and drag them back to these shores by the hair of their heads.  How dare they put their children in such terrible danger? How dare they take their children out of the relative comfort and safety of this country, without consulting their husbands and the fathers of the children?

Don't they know what will happen to their daughters?  Have they no conception of the way underage girls are treated by the 'fundamentalists'?  Don't they care that their little boys will be turned into murderers and suicide bombers?

I can't help thinking this weekend, while my two wee grandchildren are away on a camping trip with their parents, of all those other children - wrenched away from everything they know and put in terrible danger by their mothers. 

Sorry for being a downer and for this not being a typical Blip entry; but I'm seriously sad for the world today.