A DENTAL NURSE in Highland Perthshire, Anne Liddell, together with her partner Martin Morrison, regularly travels the country wearing Jacobite garb to attend pageants and re-enactments.
Following one such, the couple recently called into Stirling to take advantage of the Open Doors day at the castle.
They were denied entry by an official on the grounds of ‘inappropriate attire’. Despite this, a family behind them in middle eastern ethnic dress, including womenfolk in full burkhas, was cheerfully admitted.
When they objected to the exclusion, a further official maintained that the replica Jacobite banner that they bore on a short pole ‘might give offence’. Their persistent protestation evoked, from a third bureaucrat, a ‘clinching’ reason for their exclusion: the modest flag stick constituted a health and safety hazard.
At this point one of ‘Stirling’s finest’ stepped forward and the PC upheld the castle’s boycott by ushering them away from the Open Doors….