Me and Davie Guthrie are Sons of the Rock – the proud title given to anyone born within the old burgh boundaries of Stirling. We were both brought up in Raploch, at the foot of the great volcanic plug on which the castle stands, and my earliest memory of him is having our photos taken, age five, when we started school. We’ve led parallel lives ever since.
We were in the same class throughout Raploch Primary, skidding about on the icy playground in winter, and remained together at Riverside Secondary – looking forward to leaving at 15. After that it was a matter of looking for jobs. If you could get a trade you were quids in, so that was what we were all after. I nearly ended up as a monumental stonemason, carving gravestones. But then I heard that there were a couple of apprenticeships going at the castle – and if you worked up there you were the bee’s knees. Davie had heard about it too. We both got interviews and had to dress up in our best clothes to go to Edinburgh.
Afterwards we heard nothing. I ended up as a ‘nipper’, running messages from a building site, then working in a butchery. Davie went to the egg factory. Then, nine months later, we were told we’d got the posts and became the first ever apprentice stonemasons for Historic Scotland – not that it was called that then. So for the next four years we learned our trade together, then worked as part of the same team doing the restoration work that has made the castle the international visitor attraction it is today. Nowadays Davie is the District Works Manager, in charge of keeping the castle in perfect condition for present and future generations, while I work on the visitor side. We’re probably the longest serving members of staff.
And in an era where moving around from one town and employer to the next is the norm, it’s unusual that the two of us should have followed such similar paths for the entire 52 years since that first school photo. And what’s more we can look over the parapets and see the spot where it was taken.
Willie McEwan, Visitor Services Manager