Delgaty

The most recent of the Hay family to occupy the castle and estate was Captain “Jock” Hay of Delgatie who took over the running of the property in the 1950’s following a military career. After soldiering in India where, prior to partition he had commanded a fort near the Afghan border, he had returned to Scotland to engineer Home Guard preparations for a feared German invasion of Shetland. When hostilities came to an end he took over management of the families Shetland estate before, along with his wife Everild, embarking on a quite remarkable restoration project at Delgatie.
Today, Delgatie Castle is run as the Delgatie Castle Trust and trustee Joan Johnson has fond memories of the Captain. Describing him as a towering 6’7” man in bonnet and kilt she says “You couldn’t miss him, we often opened the newspaper or turned on the news to find that he was being featured attending some SNP conference or other.”
Full story in the June 2014 edition of the Leopard Magazine.