Scottish History – and the YouTube Generation

The press here use “The YouTube Generation” in headlines. Yet another way to label young people (because many of the stories tend to also include words like “dumbing down”).

Anyway – I digress ( already!). I read that National Trust for Scotland has posted a trailer for the new movie that is to be shown at the visitor centre at Culloden – the site of a famous battle between the Jacobites and the Government in 1746 in the north of Scotland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR_ltIlAeYA

We visited the Culloden site a few years ago when our children were quite small. We also took both sets of grandparents. The site is littered with memorial stones to the clans whose members fell at Culloden. I am a Cameron by marriage and a Graham by birth. Although my Dad is English my family history research has shown that we must be descended from Scottish Grahams.

I was terribly moved by the experience there. I can’t explain it as I had only a superficial knowledge of the actual history at that point. Maybe it was the bleakness. Maybe there is just something eerie about the site.

But I am glad that the National Trust for Scotland are using YouTube to advertise.

I visited the magnificent Wallace Monument – dedicated to Sir William Wallace ( who was played by Mel Gibson in Braveheart) for the first time this week and I was pleased to see the number and range of visitors from around the world keen to share in our history.

For those who can’t actually travel here they now only need to click onto YouTube!

http://www.culloden.org.uk/english/index.html