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.
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