CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

The  Glenfinnan Monument is located on the shores of Loch Shiel near the road from Fort William to Mallaig and commemorates the landing on the 19 August 1745 of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, or Bonnie Prince Charlie and the gathering of the clans to his banner at Glenfinnan.  The Prince's landing began the disastrous Jacobite Rebellion, which ended at Culloden near Inverness in 1746 where the Highland army was decimated. The government troops, under the Duke of Cumberland, known as 'Butcher Cumberland, purged the Highlands to put an end once and for all Scotland's resistance to Hanoverian rule in London and any thoughts of the restoration of a Stuart King. The 18 metre monument was raised in 1815, with a lone kilted highlander on top as a reminder of the lives given by the clans of Scotland to the cause of the Stuart royal line. The monument is maintained by the National Trust for Scotland and there is also a visitors centre next to the car park. These image...

Fujifilm X-T2 + XF10-24mm f4 - 3s @ f9 ISO200 (zoom 10mm) On Friday 27 January we set off from Edinburgh for a two day photo trip into the Highlands around Ullapool.  We left Edinburgh two hours before dawn and as we traveled up the A9, the main road from Perth to Inverness through the mountains, we decided to stop at the ruins of Ruthven Barracks to capture the sunrise. Ruthven Barracks stand on a mound on the opposite side of the A9 from the village of Kingussie, about 13 miles south of Aviemore.  I have been traveling up and down the A9 since I was posted to RAF Kinloss in February 1987 but have never stopped to view the ruins. Fujifilm X-T2 + XF10-24mm f4 - 1/13 @ f11 ISO400 (zoom 12mm) Ruthven Barracks were built in 1719 by the British Army after the failed Jacobite uprising in 1715.   In the 1745 rising led by Prince Charles Edward Stuart a unit of 12 British soldiers, commanded by a Sergeant Terrence Molloy of the 6th Regiment of Foo...

Yesterday I flew down to London for a memorial to celebrate the life of a friend and colleague who died suddenly before Christmas.  Travelling in from Heathrow Airport I arrived in central London 90 minutes before the start of the event at the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall so I decided to go for a walk down to the Embankment.  I ended up outside the Ministry of Defence building and standing in front of the Battle of Britain memorial.   I served 14 years in the Royal Air Force from 1982 to 1996 and the Battle of Britain is as important to every past and serving member of the RAF as the Battle of Trafalgar is to anyone who has served in the Royal Navy. The memorial is to the people who took part in the battle in 1940 that stopped the German invasion after the fall of France and ultimately led to the defeat of Germany in 1945 due to the fact that Britain was able to continue the war and become the staging post for the Normandy Invasion in 1944. ...

Sitting on top of Byre's Hill, near Haddington, is the 95ft (29m) Hopetoun Monument which was erected in 1824 in memory of John Hope, 4th Earl of Hopetoun (1765–1823).  The Hopetoun Monument dominates the skyline around the area and the views from the top of Byre's Hill across the Firth of Forth are quite spectacular.  On a clear day it is said you can see the Cairngorm mountains in the Highlands.   You can even climb the 132 steps to the top of the monument to get an even better view but I wasn't aware that this was possible until I got back to the car park and read the information board.  I'll leave that climb for my next visit. On the base of the monument is an inscription which, due to erosion and its height above the ground, is not easy to read.  But it says - "This monument was erected to the memory of the Great and Good John, Fourth Earl of Hopetoun by his affectionate and grateful tenantry in East Lothian. MDCCCXXIV"   To reach the...