The first talk of the 2024/25 season on 19 September was a wonderful presentation by
Maureen Kelly on the Redcoats in Deeside. The talk focussed on the life of these
Hanoverian soldiers during the period after the last Jacobite uprising in 1745/46 and the
later period when the army was stationed in Deeside in the early nineteenth century to
counter illicit whisky distillation. The speaker explained how these soldiers came to be
named after their distinctive coloured broadcloth coats, and illustrated this and the kit
of the men. It was pointed out that Braemar Castle was used as the army’s local
quarters, housing around 70 soldiers, in fairly cramped surroundings. The speaker
brought the times alive by drawing from correspondence of a young officer posted to
Braemar in the eighteenth century.