Charlie, Meg and Me by Gregor Ewing sampler

charlie, meg and me
world and return to it whenever possible. I would challenge anyone to
read this book and not by the end of it want to strap on their walking
boots and get onto the hills and into the glens. But beauty comes with
a price and the unforgiving nature of the place looms large here. It is
in sharing Gregor’s difficulties in coping with what, despite the roads
and ferries, still comes across pretty much as a wilderness that we get
a vivid idea of the straits in which the Prince found himself. It was a
long walk from Culloden to the shores of Loch nan Uamh, from where
the Prince was finally picked up by a French ship, and there were a lot
of detours and encounters with people on the way, and the following
pages do much to bring that journey without maps to life.
As an archaeologist I am perhaps most familiar with the starting
point for that journey, having carried out various surveys and excavations
of the battlefield at Culloden, and it was there, several years ago
now, that I ended a journey into the past of my own. A friend and
I had the bright idea of recreating another walk made by Bonnie Prince
Charlie, the night march which the Jacobite army made in attempt to
surprise the Duke of Cumberland in camp at Nairn on the night of
15–16 Arpil 1746. We decided to do it in period kit, carrying the
weapons of the day and accompanied by a platoon of eager re-enactors.
We set out from Culloden House, where Charles had set up his hq, at
around seven o’clock in the evening with a spring in our step and the
press in tow. However, as the night drew on the fatigue set in. Swords
and muskets, which at first seemed to weigh nothing, began to show
their true colours. By the time we got within a couple of miles or so
of Nairn, at around two in the morning, by which time I had already
abandoned my sword and musket, we were all shattered and decided
to a man to turn back, at a spot which can’t have been that far away
from where the Jacobite army decided to call it a night. So, we turned
and headed back, this time for Culloden battlefield.
I arrived there at around five thirty in the morning to find just
a couple of the others hanging around. Plans to have some sort of
assembly at the clan monument were forgotten as weary men melted
away back to their homes. It was at that point I realised I could barely
move – my thighs and nether regions were in agony after wearing a
kilt (full plaid) for over 20 miles. When I got back to my hotel – which
shamed me as those who made the journey in 1746 then had to fight
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