Ballater

... into the work that you do now?

Well, I, my family are from Highland Aberdeenshire, a wee village called Ballater.

Oh, I know Ballater, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And, uh, they were long, long, long, um, ancestral history in Ballater, and they were all kind of singers, poets, uh, musicians in both sides of the family.

My father actually from Elgin.

My granny's from Glenlivet.

Oh, wow.

The number of large bridges and other great engineering masterpieces on this network of roads is enormous.

Among the most famous and the most beautiful are the exquisite single arch which span the Spey just beside the lofty rearing rocks of Craigellachie and the bridge across the Dee beneath the purple heather-clad braes of Ballater.

Altogether, on Telford's Highland roads alone, there are no fewer than twelve hundred bridges.

Nor were these the only important labors by which Telford ministered to the comfort and well-being of his Scotch fellow countrymen.

There just weren't.

There was Dr. Dougie Glass, who was the family GP from the surgery in Ballater down the road.

He had a little surgery in the castle.

He was there.