The Duchess and the monkey

"There was an incident when one afternoon at my Grandparents house in Arran, the Duchess of Hamilton unexpectantly knocked on the cottage door to talk to my Grandmother about the menu for an important dinner later that week. The Duchess was wearing a rather posh straw hat with artificial flowers on it. What she didn't know was that there was a monkey in the cottage, which had been left in the care of the family by a relative who was in the Merchant Navy. They would not let him take the monkey with him on board his ship.

"Quick as a flash, the monkey snatched the hat off the Duchess of Hamilton's head and took it up to the top of a wardrobe. The children all scrambled to get it back off the monkey, much chaos ensued. When it was returned to its owner, it was in tatters. We don't know if the Duchess of Hamilton was angry or amused!

"My grandparents worked at Dougarie on Arran for the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton in the 1920s. My Grandfather, Robert Hume, was employed as a boatman and my Grandmother, Catherine, as a cook at the Lodge. The estate gave them a cottage to live in with their nine children, seven sons and two daughters, and my father was the oldest."

As told by Wyllie Hume

More information on visiting the area can be found here.