Right on queue

Having attended the Bannockburn Live event last Saturday I am appalled and frankly embarrassed at what I experienced. Is this really the best we can do to celebrate and commemorate perhaps our most important historical event as a nation?

Having paid £7 for the privilege of parking my car in a field with no segregation of pedestrians and vehicles (and my partner, who is eight month pregnant, almost getting run over) we joined what would be the first of many queues.

This first queue was the pre-queue for the queue for the ticket booth. More than an hour later we were inside the event.

Once inside we immediately queued (obviously) for the main event – the “brutally realistic” battle re-enactment. Sitting on the grass we were presented with a show that was clearly ill-prepared and under-rehearsed.

Many cues were missed. Robert the Bruce left his microphone on we heard him backstage looking for his car keys, as well as hearing several “f” word expletives over the loudspeakers. Great for the kids, eh?

No apologies from the nervous and bumbling narrator who kept saying: “We’ll get it right by act three, folks!”

After this debacle we went for a quick bite. Cue an incredible (and surely record-breaking) two-and-a-half-hour wait.

After being soaked (no cover provided to deal with the predictably poor weather) and having eaten our sodden hand-made pasta we (of course) queued to exit this disastrous event along with a hoard of ­others.

Utterly pathetic.

Craig Douglas

Easter Langside Crescent

Edinburgh