Royal military statue stolen from hotel

THE replacement for a long-lost landmark on Royal Deeside has been stolen – only two weeks after being instated with the help of the Prince of Wales.

It was revealed last month that Prince Charles had intervened to secure a replacement for the "statue" of a Gordon Highlander that had stood guard outside a Deeside hotel until it vanished in the 1980s.

The statue – a mannequin in the full dress uniform of the regiment, complete with feather bonnet – was a landmark outside the Loch Kinord Hotel in the village of Dinnet for decades.

Prince Charles, the former colonel-in-chief of the Gordon Highlanders, arranged for a wooden replacement to be delivered to the hotel after being handcrafted by a volunteer at the Gordon Highlanders Museum in Aberdeen. But the replacement has also vanished from its post at the hotel entrance.

Jenny Cox, who runs the hotel with her husband Andrew, explained that the statue vanished between 11pm and midnight last Friday night.

She said: "We were taking him in at night because he was so easy to pinch. But unfortunately he was taken while the hotel was still open.

"We were hoping somebody was going to wake up with the statue in his bedroom, feeling a bit sheepish and come back with it. But that hasn't happened."