REGARDING the article by Richard Percival on the plans to put a holiday village near the Culloden Battlefield ("Back into battle: Anger at new £1m holiday village plans for Culloden", The Herald, May 23), there are various major inaccuracies in his account.
The rebellion was not a final act against the Union of the Crowns. This was an attempt to replace one dynasty, the Hanovers, by another, the Stuarts on the UK throne. Whatever the outcome of the battle, we would still have been a united kingdom with a monarchy.
The Union of the Crowns took place in 1603, 143 years before the battle of Culloden. To suggest the battle was the final act of the Jacobites against the Union puts it on the same footing as someone now (2020) starting a campaign against Benjamin Disraeli being made Earl of Beaconsfield or against Victoria being made Empress of India.
The Union of the Parliaments took place in 1707. So the "new British army" was 39 years old at the said battle. Nowadays that’s like calling the Socialist Democrat Party a new political force.
By no stretch of the imagination was the '45 Rebellion a war of independence. It’s a shame to see it spun as such in a national newspaper.
Edward CK Mullan, Galashiels.
Honours even
FOR what it’s worth, I think Sandy Tuckerman and Duncan Stirling (Letters, May 21 & 22) are both right in their different interests about access to golf courses under the Right to Roam legislation.
As the quoted official guidance states that you can only exercise access rights to cross a golf course it is clear there is no right of general access. Thus whilst you are not allowed to roam about a golf course at will, however carefully, you are allowed to access it for the limited purpose of crossing it, with care, to continue roaming elsewhere.
Alan Fitzpatrick, Dunlop.
Actually annoying
WITH reference to the subject of people repeating words in sentences (Letters, May 23): can there be anyone worse than Kirsten Ramsay on the BBC's The Repair Shop?
I appreciate that she is lovely person and is extremely skilful, especially with ceramics, but when she is describing what she is doing, she constantly uses the words "actual" or "actually". It's not enough to describe something as simply "the glue" or "the break in the plate", but the "actual glue" or "the actual break in the plate".
I counted the word "actual" used 29 times during one of her pieces to camera. The following week it was 19 times. It's just a bad habit isn't it, or is she trying to convince us of a secondary piece of glue or break off camera that we can't see?
Ian McDonald, Maryburgh.
Hair today …
SOPHISTICATES may laugh when I reveal that in the past I have promoted the idea of a Tooth Fairy – but when a visit to the hairdresser’s is still, I believe wisely, a no-go area in Nicola Sturgeon’s Phase 1 exit stage from lockdown, but on television I see presenters, newsreaders, various pundits, and with the exception of Boris Haystack-Heid Johnson, Cabinet ministers all neatly coiffured, I am open also to the existence of a Hair Fairy.
R Russell Smith, Kilbirnie.
Garden guru
A BIG thank you to Hannah Stephenson ("Could Wabi-Sabi be the next big gardening craze?", Herald Magzaine, May 23). I was able to tell my soul-mate that I was ahead of my time in leaving the garden to nature for the last two years – no manicuring, no titivating.
Great – pass another beer.
James Watson, Dunbar.
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