Thanks, everyone, for keeping the sentiment of this thread going.

As others have said, a visit to Culloden battlefield site on Drumossie Moor is a must for anybody touring the area around Inverness. I get to go there quite often as it's where my living Scottish relatives are to be found. The exhibition centre has been rebuilt in recent times and is brilliantly evocative of the life and times of the late 18th Century in Scotland.

I agree, the battle and causes fought over at Culloden were more akin to a civil or religious war and, like the Mods, I'd hate to see a good discussion deteriorate into a Scots vs English wrangle, which it was not. My intent was to describe my emotions as I have stood kilted both at the approximate point from where the Frasers charged on the day and where, as the archaelogical evidence shows, some mass graves are located (for UK posters, Time Team did some searching with their underground radar thingy a few years back).

The 360 degree film in the exhibition is pretty darned scary, and it's where I got a lot of my imagery from. We're used to modern movies in glorious Technicolour, but this works best because it's in black and white. As the tension builds to where the charge occurs, it's amazing to feel surrounded and in the thick of the action. If I had been there, I think I'd have been glad to have been going commando as I'd probably have been peeing myself!

Culloden isn't unique, nor was what followed. Brutality on the battlefield has so often translated into shocking acts once the noise has died down. But, coming from stock rooted in the immediate glens and straths, and having slept in a farmhouse still lived in by relatives descended from some that fought that day, though it was rebuilt having been burnt to the ground, it really hits home. Who knows if my direct ancestors wore a version of tartan or a kilt-type outfit.

All I know, and all I look to here, is that my kilt, as I strap it on each time, is in memory of those that suffered. Sure, others who weren't involved also wore similar garb, but all of them had their dignity and culture affected within a short time. Still, the Highland regiments resulted and we all know how we look to them these days!

Slainte

Bruce