Sunday 15th of June saw the Crann Tara clan at Hazelhead Park in Aberdeen for the Aberdeen Highland games. The weather was kind to us with only a couple of showers through the day; the rest of the time was clear skies and warm sunshine. Our tent was in one of the far corners of the park but that did not put folk off coming to pay us a visit. We had a constant stream of people visiting our tent and many of them were interested in learning about our weapons on show i.e. how they were used and we were quick to tell them who they were used on. We asked the guys from the British Army stall if they could come along and help us with our display. They were keen on helping until they asked what they had to do.

We wanted to re- enact the Highland charge having them playing themselves (the British Army) they quickly declined. As usual it was down to the usual suspects to man our tent and help with the displays. Rab and Juliet were doing leather work displays showing how they make targes and also belts. Elma was busy selling our Crann Tara wears with myself, Jim, Kenny and Brian taking care of the weapon displays. We had our trusty photographer David with his helper Christine on hand to capture the day’s events. And not forgetting Aimee, James and Connor to help spend our days takings on ice cream and coke(only joking) the bairns were a great help.

We were asked to take part in the official opening ceremony and parade round the arena. I along with Jim , Kenny with Dundie and Big Brian our clan standard bearer followed the pipe band round the arena. It took us almost 45 minutes to get back to our tent as everyone wanted to take a picture of us wild Highlanders.

Through out the day we were visited by people from all over the world, people from Russia, Poland, Slovakia, France, Holland, Germany, Portugal, Mexico, America, Australia, South Africa and Iran we even had the odd Englishman not to say all Englishmen are odd. The most popular of our weapons with the youngsters was the muskets and pistol and with the adults it was our broad swords and claymore. The day ended with the massed pipe bands marching round the arena then it was time to dismantle our tent and pack up ready for our next outing.

By Bruce Ogilvie.