Bannockburn and Canterbury, the Ups and Downs

It's up and down the British Isles for this one. In May 2023 work took me to Stirling in Scotland where I stayed in accomodation at the University.

The site of the Battle of Bannockburn was less than two miles away so on the evening of my arrival I nipped down the road to have a look. The photo shows the flagpole in the centre of the Bannockburn Monument - not quite surrounded by a circular wall as it has two sections of wall facing each other with the two other quarters of the circle left open.

The battle was fought over two days, 23-24 June 1314 following the two opposing sides, Scottish under King Robert the Bruce and English under King Edward II having camped on either side of what would become the battlefield. The photo shows a 1964 statue of Robert the Bruce in armour and mounted on a war horse. His skull, re-discovered at Dunfermline Abbey in 1818, was used in modelling the head.

On day one of the battle King Robert, not yet fully armed but dressed for reconnaisance and armed only with an axe, was spotted by Sir Henry de Bohun, the nephew of the Earl of Hereford, who had charge of one of King Edward's cavalry divisions. De Bohun, in full armour and armed with a lance, charged King Robert but being on a lighter horse, Robert dodged the lance and on passing, swung his axe at de Bohun's head, killing him.

A view of Stirling Castle - the white building in the distance - from the battlefield. At the end of the first day of battle the English had retreated across the line of the Bannockburn stream and unknown to them their position and weakness of morale were reported to King Robert by Sir Alexander Seton, a Scottish knight who had been in the service of King Edward II.

On day two the English were surprised to see Scottish pikemen advancing in formation towards them. The Earl of Gloucester tried to persuade Edward to postpone the battle but was accused of cowardice by the king. Outraged he advanced towards the enemy, was surrounded and killed. The Scots drove the English back and the English and Welsh longbows were ordered to stop firing as their own comrades were being killed by their arrows. An attempt to flank the Scots was thwarted by King Robert's cavalry. King Edward was forcibly led away from the field by his bodyguard including Giles d'Argentan, who once having Edward clear of danger insisted on returning to the field as "...never yet have I fled from battle..." He charged back at the Scots and was killed.

Robert the Bruce won a decisive victory. Perhaps of 16,000 troops under King Edward some 11,000 were killed either at the battle or during their retreat. Since my visit the Visitor Centre was rebuilt in 2014. Since then the view of historians has been that it was in the wrong place anyway and that the most likely place for the battle is a mile and a half away to the east... Sorry for wasting your time with these photos...!

We jump to June 2003 and I found myself in Canterbury in Kent at the University. Why, I'm not sure - for some reason I made no note as to whether this was for a conference, an event specifically for the university, or to present a training course for the Regional Support Centre for the South East region. I could spot the towers of Canterbury Cathedral from the university and decided to walk - I'll just repeat that for dramatic effect - WALK there AND BACK! all the way down into the city.

I have to report that going down was easier than walking back uphill...

Work Index

Alex Versus the Monster Trucks

My old schoolmate Alex has a strange relationship with his motors.

Either they, or he, have a habit of collecting collisions in the way other folks collect stamps... His latest sad tale unfolds:

"I was tootling down to Kent last Monday, with a stop off at Elaine's sister's in Long Buckby, when some hare brained carrot crunching twat from Great Yarmouth decided it would be a good idea to smash my car to smithereens with his 39 ton Volvo truck on the M1 intersection with the M6. I was stationary on the roundabout between the two motorways, indicating right to change lanes, when there was an almighty bang and the car just rocketed forwards ten feet.

I tried to drive into the side of the road and a cloud of blue smoke drifted from under the bonnet before I just coasted to a standstill and administered the last rites to a good and faithful servant (the car - not Elaine).

Fortunately neither of us was seriously hurt although Elaine still has a bruised and swollen arm and we both had stiff necks the following day. When I opened what was left of the car boot to get our luggage out, the carpet was folded into a neat ruck in the middle because it was about six inches shorter than it was when we set off!

I wouldn't like to have been in that smash in many other cars - the passenger cell was completely intact and the exploding head rests had stuck out to minimise whiplash - I didn't even know they were there!"

Doesn't sound the ideal start to a holiday?

"Meeting East Anglia's answer to Mad Max wasn't the only piece of bad luck that we had while we were away. Coming back to the hotel on the Thursday they had a power cut, which of course meant no water, no functioning toilets and worst of all - no, not the bar, there was an Oddbins down the road - even worse than that, no telly! They finally got the water going enough for a cold shower just before we left on Friday."

Blimey! But the holiday?

"Despite all that, we had a great four days in Kent. Dover Castle was very interesting although the town was an abomination.

Canterbury was and is, a fine city with an even finer Cathedral. Not the finest, but dripping in sufficient history to make me wish that I could have spent the night there alone, just to listen to the walls speak in the dark of the night - coincidentally "Becket", the 1964 film with Richard Burton and Plenty O'Toole was on on Saturday night, and very good it was too.

Whitstable stank like the back of a bin wagon and Leeds Castle was beautiful to behold from outside but with a mediocre interior and grounds that were more reminiscent of a municipal park than a country estate.

So a bit of a curate's egg then, but sufficiently interesting to make me want to brave the 7 hour journey home through the appalling traffic and go back some day. I think that the Kent Tourist Board could only agree that that was a fair minded and succinct chronicle of my brief perambulations around the Garden of England, though admittedly not quite as expansive as the 24 pages that you give it on your web site."