The SAS, Special Air Service, the model for special forces around the world.
As you drive this country route between the Keir roundabout, and the village of Doune, you could
almost miss the monument here at the side of the road, but the man himself, could never be overlooked.
I'm not here to talk about the SAS, but the man who created it, Sir David Stirling.
If you're interested in the people, places and events in Scottish history, then click the
subscribe button at the bottom right hand side of the screen, in the meantime, let me tell you a story.
The monument here is of a towering man, six feet six as an adult, but weedy,
you might even say sickly as a little boy. Now in later life he would hold what, to me anyway, would
seem extreme conservative views, firmly part of the upper crust establishment, and yet, he had the
common touch with troops, and was no respecter of rank. A man of contrasts, that came into the world
on the 15th of November, 1915, in the great house at the next roundabout, that had been there since
the 18th Century, and on a huge estate round here, that had been in the family since the 15th Century.
Mummy was strict, daddy had money, and grandpa was the ninth Baronet, Sir William Stirling Maxwell.
Once on a childhood holiday in Mull, he'd been bitten by an adder, and the doctor wanted to
cut his leg off, and it was that formidable mother that said, no, otherwise this story may never have
happened. Now David was neither academic, nor disciplined, and that, along with the absence
from public school for that snake bite and other health issues, meant that his entry to Cambridge
wasn't because of his achievements. Maybe academic discipline and work ethic would come to him,
when he got to Cambridge, or maybe the university's proximity to Newmarket Racecourse would mean that
he'd add a gambling addiction to the reputation for hard partying, good time Charlie. Now I'm not
going to say which route you went down, what I will tell you, is that he was called in to be told that
there was a list of 23 offences, for which he could be turfed out of Cambridge, but he should
choose his favourite three for the expulsion letter, so that it wouldn't be upsetting to his mother.
I don't know about you, but see if I was a young Scottish toff who liked partying, and outdoor
hunting and shooting type lifestyle, and had just been sent down from a prestigious English
university, I think I'd go off to Paris to live the bohemian lifestyle of an artist, wouldn't you?
I mean obviously you'd have to invest in some corduroy trousers, a scarf and a beret,
but that's what David Stirling did. Whilst his siblings had found their purpose,
this was the one thing that interested him, and he was determined to give it a
go, inventing tramp chic along the way was kind of incidental. Now Paris in the spring is ...
it's much more aromatic than the poems describe. Paris in the 1930s would have been,
well, French. Unfortunately in spite of all his desire and endeavours, his tutor told him that he
was never going to make it as an artist. It was the one thing that he wanted to do, but now he was back home.
What was he gonna do? Well George Mallory had recently died in an attempt to climb Mount Everest.
Maybe David should have a go at that! How should he toughen himself up for this gargantuan task?
Join the army, at least the reserves. Like his father before him, he joined the Scots Guards.
Now he hated it. Down in Pirbright, drilling discipline and deference just weren't
his preferred activities, but it was less than 40 miles from the fleshpots of London. Now let's not
forget, that the plan was to climb Mount Everest and practice was needed, first in the Swiss Alps,
and then in the American Rockies. Unfortunately the Rockies fell behind schedule, because in
1938 en route, he had to deal with an even more insurmountable mountain, the fleshpots of New York.
When that attraction played out, the fascination for a job as a cowboy delayed him even further.
When he finally reached the Rockies, oh did I mention Las Vegas? Never mind.
When he finally, eventually, reached the Rockies, he got a message from his mother
saying, return home immediately, by the cheapest means, Britain was at war.
The early part of the war was back to the mindless, rigid, disciplined army life, which David was so
ill-suited to, so when in his gentleman's club in London he heard about a new force of commandos,
that was being set up, he thought that this would suit him perfectly. After going through training,
in 1941, he and his commando force were sent to North Africa, to prepare for an assault on Rhodes.
Unfortunately the Germans took Crete, and a stronger position in Greece, and the plans
were shelved, and thus, David found himself kicking his heels in Cairo, waiting for orders.
Were there fleshpots in Cairo? Is the Sphinx a monolith of an ancient mythical hybrid creature,
moulded of nummulitic limestone, carved into a bedrock in Giza? Do brown bears shit in the woods?
Of course there were fleshpots, in fact, some of his superiors worried that Stirling was a
malingerer, because he was always in hospital, and there was some talk of an investigation. Now the
real reason he was constantly in hospital, was that he'd learn from a nurse, that pure oxygen
was even better for a hangover than Irn Bru (a Scottish soft drink). Now a wee while later he'd a more serious reason to be
in hospital. Captain Jock Lewes had managed to get hold of 50 parachutes, that were meant to be going
to India. MOD procurement, what is it like? Anyway he got permission to borrow an aeroplane, and David
Stirling was one of the half dozen who volunteered to be part of some trials. Unfortunately, as
he jumped, the parachute got caught on the tail plane of the aircraft. Needless to say, it didn't
work properly, and when he reached the ground, he struck terra firma a bit firmer than was healthy.
Now his legs weren't working, and he needed a real stay in hospital.
While he was in hospital, he had time to think about some of the tactical problems of commando
units. Typically they arrived from sea, needed a big enough force to set up a defensive bridge
head on arrival, with a strike force then heading off to do the blowy uppy, wreak havoc type stuff,
and then get back to the protected zone. Now this needed loads of men, and a larger than ideal
footprint, and sent the same advanced messages as a bull in a china shop, texting with a Nokia 3310.
Stirling devised a better modus operandi as he was in hospital broken and unable to walk,
because of a failed parachute jump, he thought that the thing to do was to create more surprise by
parachuting into the target, doing the blowy-uppy thing, and then a long desert march to a pre-set
collection point, to meet up with a recently formed specialist unit, created for reconnaissance trips,
deep behind enemy lines. It was called, the long range desert group. Now was this a completely new thing, or
was it the development of the New Hampshire's Rogers Rangers during the Seven Years' War (French Indian
War for the North Americans)? It really didn't matter, unless you could get it off the ground,
and so he wrote a detailed strategy for smaller, specialised, elite teams in a document called
'Special Service Unit', and he addressed it to the Commander-in-Chief of Middle East forces, General
Auchinleck, but how was he going to get it into the General's hands? When he was able to walk with
crutches, he took a taxi to headquarters. Now he didn't have a security pass, so he sussed the joint,
and then decided to brass neck it and give it the old ha ha ha ha, the dog ate my homework tactic. Now it turns out
the guard was one of those, don't give me that bollocks, teachers, and being posh didn't get him
through this one. Now the thing is, he wasn't just posh, he was courageous, determined, and resourceful.
He hirples (limps) away, oh now there's a good one, that's a Scottish word I'm guessing that David Stirling
probably didn't use himself. Hirple. Right he hirples away on his crutches, until he saw a
weak point in the fence, and there he waited and watched the sentries. When they were preoccupied
with rush of people going through the gate, that was when Stirling slipped through the gap in the fence.
Obviously he had to leave his crutches behind, so the pain was excruciating,
and he was hirpling even more, as he tried to blend in with a group of officials on the other side,
that had come through the gate. He was almost at the main entrance to the building, before the guard
noticed and shouted, oy you! Suddenly Stirling had to give it mega licks with a hirple factor of 8
into the building, along the corridor, gritting his teeth against the pain all the time, until
he got to a door that said Adjutant General. He burst through the door and started blurting out
I'm David Stirling, I've got a plan for elite special forces to do crack operations jumping
from parachutes, and I know I got this hirple from jumping from a parachute, but I've prepared this dossier and
ah shit, you're one of the officers that I ignored with indiscipline back at Pirbright,
when I was in the fleshpots of London, eh .. wrong number. Must have been the hoofs and the Nokia 3310.
He hightails it out the door, but now he's got two folk chasing him down the corridor;
the gate Guard and the Adjutant General, okay. Why are they not catching him? I have no idea. It seems
like one of those unlikely chases you see in films right, but this actually happened right.
He's hirpling, there waddling. Somehow he gets to the door of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff,
General Neil Ritchie, and he bursts through the door. This time Stirling starts with an apology,
then he hands Ritchie the dossier. As General Ritchie reads the dossier, Stirling's trying to
hold the door shut. There's growling dogs, barking Adjutant Generals, arms coming around the sides of
the doors in a cartoonish comic cut with a Sentry Guard still shouting, oy you, what are you up to?
Whilst all this is going on, General Neil Ritchie calmly reads through the dossier
twice, looks up and says there may be some merit in this, and that is how the SAS started.
Just one more, in a long list of Scottish inventions, which is why there's a monument here
to Sir David Stirling. Can I suggest that you also watch a video on another famous regiment, The Black
Watch. You'll find the link on screen here. Tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.