My Grandfather's favourite

Towards the end of last year my only grandfather still living whom I so dearly love was on the verge of death. It was so sad to see him in a terribly weak and helpless position. Thanks to grace, he was granted another Christmas with his family. This little video is proof that he made it another year and at 80 years old can still put a smile on his face.

Recently, I asked him what his favourite song is. I wanted to know what melodies touched his heart so much so that still to this day he remembers it. With a sparkle in his blue Scottish eyes, he said "Loch Lomond". I asked him to share the story behind the song. This is his recollection of the song and it's history:

"I'll start from the beginning.

Granny and I (when we were over in Scotland) went to a castle in a place called Carlisle. The tour guide was an English person.  He said how cruel the English were to the Scots people because that castle actually belonged to the Scots people but the English commandeered it.

When the Scots people went to attack the English that had taken over the castle, they had a motor around the castle and they had what was called a draw bridge. They put the bridge down and allowed the Scots people to come in. There was an archway. They let them in and then they closed the gate. But then about 10 meters further on there was another gate. They lowered that. They were trapped in that and packed in. Then they showed above us there was a trap door. The English used to open it and pour hot tar on all the Scots people underneath. Of course this burnt them to death.

Those that survived, they put in a cell in the castle. The tour guide took us down there. As I say, he even said how cruel the English were to the Scots. They put them in this cell. They packed in about two hundred people in a space which could only take twenty. They couldn't even feed them because they were so congested. This one chap knew that he wouldn't come out there alive so he wrote that song Loch Lomond to his fiance. And that's where it originated. He wrote the song down and when his colleagues eventually died and of course he had died as well, they found this song that he had written".