An Interview with The House of Gordon (Scotland)

My family has been involved with the society since very early on. My late grandfather was the first official convener of the society and my dad later took on the job. I have been helping out in the clan tent at our home games at Aboyne for as long as I can remember, but I began to get more involved towards the end of secondary school when I got more interested in family history.

What is your role within the society and what does this entail?

I am a jack-of-all-trades in the society at the moment! I write and share content on our social media, gather articles for our annual newsletter, work on updating and improving our website, do genealogical and heraldic research on the family and respond to queries about the history of the family and the castles related to it!

What is the most rewarding aspect of working with The House of Gordon?

Seeing people's interest and appreciation in what I produce is always a nice feeling. It's also satisfying completing big projects. Recently we digitised virtually all our old newsletters dating back to the 1960's so they can be rescued from oblivion and read by people anywhere in the world. I also spent a long time typing up one of our very useful old publications which had gone out of print! Seeing our followers on social media ticking up over the months is also satisfying.

I first became more interested in the family history when a friend said his dad had been doing some family tree research and said he was distantly related to me. It prompted me to look into my own family tree and see what I could find. 11,000 people added to the tree later, and I still haven't found that connection, but I have learned a lot about the family along the way! Before I left school I was starting to draw out the various different coats of arms granted to the family by learning about the obscure language of blazon that described them. I spent time in archives gradually piecing together the various branches of the family, and began working on a website to put my research. I know I'm quite young to be so interested in genealogy and heraldry, but that gives me all the more time to learn more about it!

Being a part of the Gordon clan means a lot to me. Very simply, as well as being part of your own immediate family, you also feel a kinship with a large group of other people in the world with whom you share a common history and pride. We are fortunate in being part of a family that has had an important impact on Scottish history. A romantic family from whom the poet Byron sprung. A family who at times sacrificed their lives for what they believed to be right, like John Gordon, Viscount Kenmure, beheaded at Tower Hill for his support for the Old Pretender. We didn't always pick the winning side, but somehow we've just about survived!

The main event I take part in with the clan/family is attending our home games at Aboyne every year, which are held near our Chief's castle and which he oversees as chieftain of the games. I look forward to it not just because of the opportunity to bore people to death about the family history, but also because I can catch up with friends I haven't seen for a long time. I've also enjoyed the opportunity to go to the Gordon Castle Highland Games in recent years, and of course the gathering in Edinburgh in 2009, and our own Gordon 2000 celebrations at the millennium.

The Dress Gordon tartan probably looks the best, and I think many fashion designers agree, as you often see it used on the catwalk. We are fortunate in having some very nice looking tartans - when Theresa May was Prime Minister she wore a Modern Gordon sash for a Burns Night in Downing Street, and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been seen out and about in a Red Gordon jacket!

The Duke of Rothesay often wears a Modern Gordon tartan to reflect his role as the last Colonel-in-Chief of the Gordon Highlanders regiment.

What is your favourite fact or story about Clan Gordon?

One story in particular springs to mind. The Forbes and Gordon families for many years feuded with one another in Aberdeenshire - both were powerful families with differing politics and religion. It's said that one day the Gordons were invited to dinner at Castle Forbes (now Drumminor Castle), and the Lord Forbes of the day, wary of betrayal by the Gordons, intimated to his kinsmen that if he suspected foul play, he would signal to them by stroking his beard, whereupon they were all to draw their daggers and stab the Gordon sitting next to them. It's said in the story that Lord Forbes eventually relaxed and began to enjoy the banquet, perhaps a little too much, because he absent-mindedly did stroke his beard, and instantly the hall rang with the sound of drawn steel and the cries of murdered Gordons. We're all friends now though! I recently went to Drumminor and was not stabbed.

We are big proponents of social media, so lockdown hasn't stopped our activities in that regard. We post regularly on the main social networks and we're always on the look out for the next big thing - looks like that's TikTok at the moment! We've tried to post positive things over the lockdown period, like a news story about a Gordon family donating all the food from their cancelled wedding to a local hospital, or our old clan seat at Huntly Castle being swathed in blue light to pay tribute the workers of the NHS helping to keep us safe.