The street in Australia named after my great great grandfather

My family history stuff is put away and I'm far too hot to go and look for it, so this is written from memory, but I think it's right.

I've posted a lot about my great great grandmother's brother Sandy Campbell and also about her sister Johanna Robertson Campbell. Both were senior members of Queen Victoria's staff at Balmoral. But what about my great great grandmother Jane Clark Campbell?

She died aged only 22, having already had an illegitimate son with a man called Alexander Calder.

The boy, my great grandfather, was brought up by the Campbell family in Scotland, but Alexander left for Australia. He became one of the first residents of the town of Smeaton in Victoria, and this road there is a street named after him.

Calder Street is the one going off to the right in the photo above – you can see the Calder St. signpost pointing the way. The inscription below is on the Campbell family monument in the old kirkyard at Crathie.

In which my great great grandmother's brother stuffs a ptarmigan

I've written before about my great great grandmother's brother Sandy Campbell - about how his dog Sir William Wallace and how the last Tsar of Russia gave him a pair of binoculars.

An item in a Dundee Courier (8 May 1973) column by "Craigie" about a laburnum tree in a Carnoustie front garden soon turns to him:

Back in those Victorian times Queen Victoria herself an eye for quaint and picturesque effects of this sort.

When visiting Loch Muick (near Balmoral) she often had a word on the subject with Sandy Campbell, her stalker at Glasallt Shiel. 

Sandy had the road along the loch planted with rowan trees to form dainty arches. And here and there he planted seedlings together and intertwined their pliant stems giving the same unusual appearance as the Carnoustie laburnum.

Stalker Campbell also kept an interesting "museum" in the coach house at Glasallt Shiel. He was an amateur taxidermist, and stuffed a whole collection of animals and birds like wild cats, grouse and ptarmigan, along with foxes' masks and brushes.

There was also an impressive array of antlers, and horns of sheep and wild goats.

He also collected bits of quartz and rock crystal found in the hills round about, as well as a sample of the 6-foot-long heather that grew in some of the mountain ravines.

Stuffed Victorian dog returns to train station home

The judges didn't like "train station" but were won over by the second mention in the story below: "the beloved Victorian mascot".

So BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award.

This post is illustrated with a picture of this blog's favourite Victorian dog, Sir William Wallace, who belonged to my great great grandmother's brother Sandy Campbell. This photo appeared in The Sphere for 13 October 1900, so he was very much a late Victorian dog.

Did Victoria and John Brown have a child and did my family know?

Regular readers will know that my great great grandmother's siblings Sandy Campbell and Johanna Campbell were both trusted servants to Queen Victoria at Balmoral. So I take a particular interest in the subject of this podcast.

I remember reading a paper that pointed out that Conservative historians hotly denied that Victoria and John Brown were lovers, while left-wing historians sniggered at the idea. The author hoped they were lovers and it made Victoria happy.

In this podcast Fern Riddell describes her researches and discoveries, which make you think that - maybe, just maybe - there was such a child.

And if Victoria and John Brown did have a child, it's not ridiculous to think that Sandy, a friend of Brown from their boyhoods, and Johanna, the housekeeper at Victoria's retreat even from Balmoral, must have known.

Sandy Campbell and the Royal Family after Queen Victoria

We left my great great grandmother's brother in 1900 with a post about his being presented with a pair of binoculars by Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia.

He enjoyed another burst of press coverage in 1907. Here's the Aberdeen Press and Journal for Monday 22 July 1907:

The Queen comes early to Deeside, along with Princess Victoria. Both are keen trout anglers, and will spend most of their time on the lochs in and around Balmoral, which have from time to time been re-stocked and improved with both "natives" and Lochlevens. 

The young Princes of Wales will soon be at Abergeldie, and, with Old Sandy Campbell as their special guide, they are expected to make some grand baskets on Loch Muick and its feeders. 

Campbell, although in retirement, is, like Donald Stewart, somehow or other indispensible. They knew the wiles of the fario and where the big "boys" lie. They know the side of the loch which is most favoured to-day; and was not Donald the favourite keeper of the King, the Prince Wales, and his late brother in days gone by? 

The Queen in 1907 was Edward VII's consort Alexandra, and Princess Victoria was their daughter, the Princess Royal. The Prince of Wales in that era was the future George V. so perhaps the "young Princes of Wales" was an inaccurate reference to the future Edward VIII and George VI, who were then lads.

"The fario" are trout, while the Prince of Wales' late brother is Prince Albert Victor, seen by some as a candidate for being Jack the Ripper.

Moving hurriedly on, another report appeared in The Sphere on Saturday 31 August 1907. It describes a visit to Balmoral by Queen Alexandra, which was shorter than usual because of the illness of the Princess Royal:

Old Sandy Campbell and her favourite breed of collies are granted a morning interview, for it was the father of this half-collie, half-deerhound, that found the King, then Prince of Wales, when he was lost with his gillie one misty day among the hills. Sandy still keeps up the breed, and a shaggy but hardy cross it is and well named the Balmoral collie.

In 1900 Sandy's dog was called Sir William Wallace (not to be confused with our own Lord Wallace of Saltaire), but I don't know if he was, or was related to, the dog that found the future Edward VII.

Finally, The Sphere published an article about Edward VII on Saturday 12 October 1907. In it we read:

There is nothing he likes better than a crack with old Sandy Campbell, his gillie and guide in his younger days when stalking on "dark Lochnagar," or with Donald Stewart, who taught him first to shoot straight and hit his first stag.

Sandy Campbell died on 20 May 1912, aged 76.

Sandy Campbell grew potatoes on an island in Loch Muick

The Scots Magazine for 1 July 1970 has a snippet about my great great grandmother's brother Sandy Campbell:

Winter lingers right into early summer in this area between Dee and Spey, and this must have meant a very late sowing. But crops can be grown in unpromising places. 

In Queen Victoria’s day the stalker at Glasallt Shiel, Sandy Campbell, used to grow a crop of potatoes on a little island on Loch Muick. "Weel, ye see, it's the best bit o’ soil roond aboot," was his explanation.

I think I'll take to speaking like that myself.

Johanna Campbell, my great great grandmother's sister and housekeeper to Queen Victoria at Glas-allt-Shiel

My great great grandmother Jane Clark Campbell died at the age of 22, having had a son with one Alexander Calder. We've seen plenty about one of her brothers, Sandy Campbell; now it's the turn of one of her sisters.

Thanks to Don Fox and his blog, I can tell you about Johanna Campbell. (According to the article in The Sphere I blogged about earlier this year, Jane, Sandy and Johanna's father - my great great great grandfather - was a keeper rather than a labourer.)

Johanna Campbell was born at Khantore, Crathie in 1852, the daughter of a labourer. She was initially employed as a housemaid and was eventually appointed to the Queen’s service as housekeeper at Glasalltshiel, the Queen’s retreat on the shores of Loch Muick. There she developed a reputation for being welcoming to both visitors and passers-by. Her brother, Sandy, was also in royal employment as a keeper and was well-known for his trout fishing acumen.  

In December 1898, Johanna Campbell became ill and was referred to Professor Alex Ogston in Aberdeen. After examining Miss Campbell, he wrote to James Forbes, the new commissioner on the Balmoral estate and successor to Alexander Profeit (RA VIC/ADDQ/7/65) to inform him of his opinion.  

“My Dear Sir, I was favoured with your letter about Miss Campbell and saw her when she called today.  She has cancer of the left breast which requires to be removed forthwith.  And I have arranged that she will come into the Infirmary on Thursday at 12.30, when I shall be pleased to do all in my power to cure her".  

Sadly, the referral was too late, as was often the case in those days, and Johanna Campbell died in January 1900, the cause of death being given as “carcinoma of the breasts and secondary thoracic and abdominal deposits of 4 months’ standing”, as certified by Alexander Hendry, at the time a general practitioner in Ballater.  

In her final days, Johanna Campbell was cared for in the Balmoral estate sanatorium.  She too was buried in the Crathie churchyard.

And the Fishing Gazette for 27 January 1900 reported:

Miss Johanna Campbell, the Queen's housekeeper at Glassalt Shiel, Deeside, died last week, after a painful illness. Miss Campbell was of an extremely kind and obliging disposition, sod many a tourist and angler will long remember her with gratitude for the welcome cup of tea which was ever ready in her own room to whoever came her way. No introduction was required, and to all she dispensed a queenly hospitality as became a prime favourite and representative of the Queen. 

Her brother, Mr. Alexander Campbell (Sandy), is one of Her Majesty's keepers, and as a trout angler in these part cannot be excelled. He is guide, philosopher, and friend to the princesses and Court party when they go a-trouting on Loch Muick, and at other times supplies the Queen's table with trout.

I shall merely add that if Queen Victoria and John Brown were lovers, then Johanna, as housekeeper at Glas-allt-Shiel, would surely have known.

The illustration shows the monument that Sandy Campbell erected to his parents, and those of his brothers and sisters who already died, in the old kirkyard at Crathie. Johanna is remembered on it, but my photo of her side of he monument did not come out well. So my great great grandmother Jane Clark Campbell features here.

Don Fox's blog post is about Professor Sir Alex Ogston, a remarkable man, and you can read more about his role in the first world war (he was 70 when it broke out) on the University of Aberdeen site.

The last Tsar of Russia gave Sandy Campbell a pair of field glasses

When I was 12 I could recite the Romanov Tsars of Russia in their correct order. My enthusiasm for Russian history was kindled by Robert Massie's book Nicholas and Alexandra and the film that was made of it.

Sadly, that knowledge has long gone. But I was still chuffed to see this photograph and caption in The Sphere:

SANDY CAMPBELL LOOKING OUT FOR DEER ON LOCHNAGAR 

These field-glasses were presented to Mr. Campbell by the Czar when his Imperial Majesty visited Glassalt Shiel

Sandy Campbell, who was the brother of my great great grandmother, now has his own label on this blog.

This is the third of three articles occasioned by that article in The Sphere. The first two were:

• In which Queen Victoria calls on my great great great grandmother
• Sandy Campbell, his dog and Queen Victoria

Sandy Campbell, his dog and Queen Victoria

Of all Her Majesty's Highland servants and ghillies, and there are some forty or more all told, Sandy Campbell and Donald Stewart are the favourites. Donald, who is Sandy's senior and superior, carries more responsibility and is more often in personal contact with the Court when at Balmoral, and has his quarters, accordingly, near at hand. He is, in short, the Balmoral keeper, and dubbed the Queen's Head Stalker. 

Sandy Campbell, on the other hand, has his quarters at Glassalt Shiel on Loch Muick (pronounced Mick) and on the eastern boundary of the Balmoral estate, and although taking his orders from headquarters is to the Queen and members of the Court party Sandy Campbell of Glassalt Shiel and a persona grata with Her Majesty as he was with Prince Albert in his day, and a great favourite of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Connaught, and all the immediate members of the royal household and others who come about Balmoral and visit Glassalt Shiel for a day's deerstalking. 

Yes, it's time to return to Balmoral and my great great grandmother's brother Sandy Campbell. I blogged part of the article about him from The Sphere the other day, and the rest is here.

I've been to Glas-allt-Shiel (that seems the most popular way of writing it today) and walked all round Loch Muick. I remember the change in the air as you enter the pinewood around the house - it suddenly becomes wonderfully soft.

You can even stay at Glas-allt-Shiel yourself: there's a bothy in one of the out buildings.

Anyway, back to my kinsman:

Sandy Campbell stands 6 ft. 3 in. in his stockings, is stout in proportion, athletic and hardy. If a model of a Highland ghillie were wanted a better could not be got than Sandy Campbell of Glassalt Shiel. He can give points to any of his compeers at stalking the red deer in the royal forests; he knows their haunts and lairs, and is a sure guide, philosopher, and friend to the princelings who come up to him from the palace below. 

The mists of Lochnagar may be terrible to others, but Sandy knows his way through the densest cloud, and his footing is as sure as that of the deer itself over the snow steppes of these bleak and dreary regions. Sandy never wastes powder on a second shot the first always finds its mark and although his work is not to shoot deer, but to save and protect them, yet as we all know the keeper's rifle often makes the bag. 

As an angler Sandy knows where the big fish lie in Loch Muick, and the times and seasons when it is desirable to send on a basket of speckled trout for the royal larder. He makes his own flies and rods, and all that he needs from the tackle shops are a few irons and a hank of gut. 

Sandy lives alone in the Glassalt Shiel, for like his old playmate and friend John Brown he has never as yet been tempted into the wiles of wedlock. His sister was house keeper to him for many years, but she died some two years ago, and since then Sandy has taken full charge of his own domestic arrangements and save when the Queen is at Balmoral, and the Shiel likely to be used, there is no one about the place but himself. When, however, visitors are expected a staff of servants is hurriedly driven up from Balmoral, the blinds are run up, the fires more heavily heaped up, and life reigns supreme till they again take their departure. 

But Sandy is never lonely. In the winter and spring he may be months with only his collie and his books he is an omnivorous reader of history but in the summer, and especially the autumn, not a day passes but he has troops of visitors from far and near, and when the Court is at Balmoral the Glassalt Shiel is a favourite resort not only of Her Majesty but of all who come about her. 

Her Majesty does not now visit the Shiel so often nor so regularly as she was able to do till within the last few years, but when she does then Sandy is seen at his best. He has a museum for Sandy is a collector after his own fashion of unique curios, nicely arranged in what he calls his shoppie (shop) at the end of the house. Probably there is no other of its kind extant. 

Certainly it is an original and unique collection, ranging from a boot protector to a shell from Khartoum, gifts of pictures, signed photographs, spears, arrow-heads, and trinkets collected by and presented to Sandy by royalties and others, from the Queen down to her humblest subject who has visited these parts for it is an understood rule with Sandy and his patrons that whoever is permitted to view the collection must add something to it, other than coin of the realm. Sandy draws the line at filthy lucre. 

His object is to have a unique collection of curios, and as he cannot assume the role of collector himself and become an antiquarian hunter he has this way of bring ing the mountain to him since he cannot go to it. Besides he has been the recipient of so many royal avours in the way of hunting knives, dirks, flasks, rifles, scarf pins, and medals that he has a pride in showing them off as well as keeping them intact and in good preservation. 

The Queen has another subject of interest. She never forgets to grant an interview to "Sir William Wallace." He is Sandy's faithful friend and companion, and he and his collie are never far apart. The Queen has a special penchant for dogs, and for Sandy's collie in particular. When Sandy visits the royal quarters at Balmoral "Sir William" always accompanies him as the Queen is sure to ask for him, and to have a titbit brought for him. "Sir William" knows Her Majesty quite well, and whether on the road at the Shiel or the Castle his demonstrations of joy at her appearance are peculiarly demonstrative. 

Sandy takes his full share of all the ceremonies at Balmoral, and the Jubilee rejoicings called forth his special good sense and ripe experience of what would please Her Majesty best. When the servants and tenants met to consider what would best commemorate the auspicious event ol 1897 he suggested the granite well between Abergeldie and Balmoral. Her Majesty was specially pleased with the idea, and has drunk several times from it. 

Sandy is just now in the height of his glory. He has had the Prince of Wales, for whom he entertains an attachment and affection that only Highland ghillies are capable of showing, the Duke of Connaught, the Duke of York, and other royalties, and they have had an extra good season among the grouse and deer, and for the next twelve months to come nothing will be talked of but the visits of the Princes and the bags made on Glassalt Shiel.

According to Robert Smith in A Queen's Country, Victoria liked her stalkers and ghillies to be clean shaven, but Sandy refused to part with his beard. There will be another post about him soon.

In which Queen Victoria calls on my great great great grandmother

I thought I would have a search for my great great grandmother's brother Sandy Campbell in the British Newspaper Archive, and I struck gold. He was the subject of an article in The Sphere for 13 October 1900 - the photograph above is taken from it.

There's more than one post in it for me, but here is Queen Victoria calling on Sandy's mother - and my great great great grandmother - Margaret Campbell (née Gordon), 1808-91. What the report calls "Kintore" is the settlement near Crathie known as Khantore today:

Sandy and the late John Brown were boys about Balmoral, and were close and intimate friends through life. They both attended Prince Albert when deerstalking, Sandy's particular domain being the Glassalt Shiel district, where his father was keeper before him. 

For many years after her husband's death his mother lived at Kintore, Crathie, where she had a free croft and cottage, as well as many other gifts from the bounty of the Queen. While Mrs. Campbell lived Her Majesty paid her a yearly visit, as is her custom yet to her old pensioners, residenters, and tenants, and presented her with a new gown and a pound of tea, and made numerous inquiries as to her health and supply of bodily comforts. 

The Queen never does her calling in any perfunctory manner. She left her carriage, entered the little homely "but and ben," a thatched but comfortable cot, and seating herself in the "ben," or parlour, would engage in a homely confab over various domestic affairs of an hour's duration, and often to the annoyance of John Brown, especially if it was a good angling day, as he would be impatient to get his royal mistress home in order that he might get free himself and on to the water. "When you women get together there's nae end to your gab" John was heard once to remark as he tucked his royal mistress into her carriage and mounted the box himself.

But that was five-and-twenty years ago. Most of these old landmarks have gone over to the majority; John himself lies in the little old country kirkyard of Crathie, and no wonder that the Queen has a fondness for Sandy Campbell and such like life servants. They are all that are left to her of a bright and happy past, and Balmoral would indeed be to her the banquet hall deserted were it not that a few a very few are still left to her now staid grey old men who were boys in her service forty and more years ago.

There'll be more on Sandy Campbell another day. Like his friend John Brown, he is buried in the old kirkyard at Crathie.

Exploring Royal Deeside in 1959

This is a nice find. In a film made in 1959 for the Scottish Educational Film Association, two children follow the River Dee upstream from Aberdeen Harbour to somewhere close to its source in the Cairngorms.

Click on the still above to view it on the British Film Institute site.

The blurb there says:

Visit Aberdeen harbour, crammed with fishing boats, then row up the river Dee to see the fishermen, with crates of salmon and wriggling eels. After Cults station, stop at Peterculter for the Culter paper mill, then at Banchory for A & G Paterson’s saw mill. Steam on to Ballater for a bus to Balmoral Castle and a Highland Games for some right royal revelry.

And after that, visit the Linn of Dee, watch some mountaineers and see are young protagonists Maria and Michael do some scrambling themselves.

The absence of adult supervision is striking and we see other children helping out on a farm. The past is a foreign country.

As we visit Royal Deeside, I suppose I had better mention again that my forebears worked on the Balmoral Estate.

I am particularly proud of Alexander 'Sandy' Campbell, my great great grandmother's brother, who is said to have refused to shave his beard off for Queen Victoria and who may be the subject of a silver statuette on display in the ballroom at Balmoral.

The eight attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria

My great great great uncle refused to shave his beard off for Queen Victoria. Penny Pepper's great great great uncle tried to shoot her.

In an article published by the Guardian on World Mental Health Day, she tells the story of Edward Oxford's crime and of his humane treatment when he was found innocent by reason of insanity.

She concludes:

It’s tragic that there is very little sense of true asylum, of sanctuary, within today’s mental healthcare system.

Remarkably, Oxford's attempt on Victoria's life - he fired two pistols at the royal carriage at Constitution Hill near Buckingham Palace in May 1840 - was the first of eight more or less serious attempts on the old girl's life.

Barrie Charles, who has written a book on the subject, lists them on his website.

The Social Historian lists only seven but adds a press report from the Nottinghamshire Guardian:

Saturday 15 June 1895 ATTACKS ON THE QUEEN. The apprehension of a crazy youth with a loaded revolver on his way to Balmoral on Friday to obtain an interview with the Queen is the first incident of the kind that has occurred on Deeside. There her Majesty has been singularly free from annoyances of any description, and has usually moved about without any guard or protection whatever.

And there was also an incident in Sidmouth when she was a baby. Shooting Victoria has the story:

When in June 1840 Edward Oxford fired his two pistol at Queen Victoria, she suffered the first of her eight assaults. But that was not the first time she found herself at the wrong end of a gun. 

Twenty years before, in January 1820, seven-month-old Princess Victoria had just moved into Westbrook Cottage outside Sidmouth, Devon, with her father and mother, the Duke and Duchess of Kent. Her father, then deeply in debt, had chosen the place both to flee creditors in London, and to make sure that his precious daughter, in line for the royal succession, remained in England. 

It was there that a boy outside the house, shooting birdshot at sparrows, fired through a window, narrowly missing the infant Victoria, then in the arms of a nurse.

This incident was the starting point of And So - Victoria by Vaughan Wilkins, whose historical novels were popular in the 1950s. There it takes on a far more sinister aspect.

Lord Bonkers on Elizabeth II's record reign

Lord Bonkers writes exclusively for Liberal England:

Congratulations to Her Most Gracious Majesty on her setting of a new record.

It happens that I was presented to Queen Victoria as a boy. I wore my sailor suit: she had a stubbly chin, a strong German accent and Army boots peeking out from under her skirts. 

"Look at old Grandpa Loony," she exclaimed, pointing to a Morland of George III. "I bet he vas sick ven I broke his record!" 

Like Len Hutton or Bob Beamon (to whom she bore a passing resemblance), she must have thought that she had put the record out of reach, but time makes fools of us all.

This seems an appropriate time to remind readers that my great great grandmother's brother refused to shave off his beard for Queen Victoria.

Some unsolicited advice for the Royal Family

I enjoyed watching the spectacle of the Royal Wedding today and wish the couple well. What I found increasingly hard to stomach as the day wore on were the fawning and flanneling broadcasters and some of the people they found to interview among the crowds.

It seems I am in favour of monarchy: it's the monarchists I can't stand.

After today's events the prospects for a Republic in Britain do not seem immediately encouraging, but that is no reason for royalists to ignore problems that arise in the future. So let me offer the Royal Family a little unsolicited advice.

The first piece of advice is to urge them to recognise that apparently partisan moves like failing to invite Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are bound to be profoundly damaging in the long run. If the monarchy is to succeed in its aim to represent the whole nation, then it must embrace all parts of our national life. In particular, it must make efforts to connect with those, like Labour members, who may well not wish it well.

By acting as it did, Buckingham Palace has made itself look petty and left Labour itching to have its revenge when it gets back into power.

Who was behind this blunder? I don't know, but I am a great lover of the phrase "badly advised". It's a formulation I have often used in Liberal Democrat News if I want to oppose something the leadership has said or done. And in the 17th century Parliament never attacked Charles I: they merely blamed his advisers - right until the point when they cut his head off.

So let me just say that the Royal Family was badly advised when it decided to exclude Blair and Brown from the list of guests for today's wedding.

You could say that it was particularly ungracious of them not to invite Tony Blair after he rescued them when they made such an appalling mess of reacting to the death of the Princess of Wales. Except that I suspect that was precisely why he was excluded. Buckingham Palace have not forgiven him for being right when they were wrong.

My second piece of advice is to urge them to change the law of succession so that males and females are treated equally and to do it quickly.

The current position is logically indefensible (though, come to that, so is the institution of monarchy as a whole). And the demand for equal treatment for women is not going to go away.

So the change should be made now when all the immediate heirs are male. That way it will not become a debate about individuals.

Just imagine if William and Catherine have a daughter and then a son. The debate about changing the law of succession would then become intensely personalised. It would not deal with questions of gender equality or constitutional precedent, but with the personal qualities of two children. A public tantrum would lead to solemn articles about whether the thrower was fit to be king or should be passed over in favour of his sister.

We are told that making such a change would be difficult as it would require assent from every Commonwealth country. But that is an argument for urgency, not one for doing nothing.

Lastly, this seems a good place to point out that my great great grandmother's brother refused to shave his beard off for Queen Victoria.

Mr Gladstone's Willy amused Queen Victoria

In Richard Deacon's The Private Life of Mr Gladstone from 1965 we catch a glimpse of William Henry Gladstone, who went to school at Geddington:

In the late 'forties Mrs Gladstone, who was a great favourite of the Queen, sometimes took her children, Willy and Agnes, to Windsor Castle, and the Queen told Gladstone later that "their frank demeanour and childish pranks" made her "laugh heartily".

There was a favourite of Queen Victoria in my family too.

Sandy Campbell: My great great grandmother's brother

I originally posted this extract from Robert Smith's book A Queen's Country (published in 2000) on my anthology blog Serendib. As few people read it, I thought I would give Sandy Campbell more publicity here.

It is not everyone who has a relative who told Queen Victoria where to get off:

Sandy Campbell sported a magnificent beard. Queen Victoria didn't like it and asked him to remove it. She said she liked all her stalkers and ghillies to be clean-shaven. But Sandy refused to part with his beard, saying he had never shaved all his life and didn't intend to start now. He told the Queen that he would rather go back where he came from. The matter was quietly dropped and Sandy and his beard stayed at Balmoral ...

Sandy Campbell was a favourite with Queen Victoria. In his years at Loch Muick he met many members of the Royal Family and their VIP guests, but he was probably known as much for his hobbies as he was for his skill as a stalker. He dabbled in taxidermy in an age when "stuffers" were much in demand. The animals and birds he stuffed were put on display, along with other curios, in the Glassallt Shiel's coach-house - "the Loch Muick Museum", Princess Alexandra called it.

Stones found in the hills, cairngorms, quartz, pieces of rock-crystal and rock-salt, deer antlers and the horns of sheep and goats, foxes' masks and brushes - they all found their way into the museum. I never discovered what happened to Sandy's collection in the Loch Muick Museum. If it had survived the years it might have found a place in the visitors' centre at the Spittal.

"He was a bit of an eccentric," said John Robertson. He planted honeysuckle away out towards the Dubh Loch, halfway between in and the Glass-alt, beside a cairn of stones. He also planted holly trees along the lochside. John thought that only two of them had survived.

Today, the museum has gone and everything in it, but if things had been different Sandy might have been remembered by one of the cairns he would put up at the drop of a hat. "If he parted company with somebody," said John, with a grin, "he would build a cairn." He erected one at the lochside and called it Campbell's Cairn, but his self-made monument was demolished by an avalanche about 1957.

Thank goodness his eccentricity has not come down the family to me.