A Son of the Rock

If you travel down (or up) the B824 between the roundabout at the northern end of the M9 (where it turns into the A9 for further travel north) and the small town of Doune in Stirlingshire you can see off the road the statue of a lone figure. The signpost names it as the David Stirling Memorial.

Who was David Stirling?

Well, he was the man who started up the Special Air Services Regiment, otherwise known as the SAS.

This is the statue:-

One of the plaques on the statue’s base names Stirling, the other is a memorial to those SAS men who died on active service.

Two more photos of this statue are on my flickr site.

It’s in a lovely location on a rural hillside with views of rolling hills. And a wind farm. (I don’t think wind farms are eyesores, by the way. People who moan about them probably wax lyrical about windmills to which they are the modern equivalent.)

Why site the statue in such an out of the way spot?

Well; Stirling was a local. The Parish of Lecropt, where he was born, lies between Bridge of Allan (over the M9 near the town – now city – of Stirling) and Doune. There is a Carse of Lecropt and a Lecropt Kirk signposted as you leave Bridge of Allan heading towards the M9.

David Stirling’s Wikipedia entry shows a family connection with the Lord Lovat who led a brigade on to Sword Beach during the D-Day landings. Lovat famously ordered his personal bagpiper to pipe the commandos ashore. The defending Germans reputedly didn’t shoot him (the piper) because they thought he was mad.

That last bit about the Germans may be an urban myth but makes a great story.