I was part of the saluting team at Edinburgh Castle. I did loads of 21 gun salutes there at the castle,but we used the 25 pounders and not the 105s they use now. The girl firing the gun is my friend Ally who I served with in 207 Battery RA. She was the first female to fire in the saluting team. Great days !!
@Michael Evans I'm an German Guardsman, we also do salute shots with artillery but we do have small ear protection things in the ear. Only spoken Order we got is ,,Feuer" which is understandable tho. Feel sorry for your ears mate. Semper Talis!
Here in Roma, Italy we have a similar tradition. A gun fires at noon everyday. Once, a tourist asked me where the cannon shot ended. I answered that everyday we destroyed a random building, in order to modernize urban design. He told me it was very clever and went away nodding his head. God bless the tourists, coming from places newer than a cobblestone in our streets.
As a former resident of Edinburgh, this was something I was so used to that it usually didn't even register. However, now when I return to visit my beloved former city, it is something I look forward to and most certainly notice.
It's same as me living in manly, Sydney Australia. The beach is nothing, just somthn you grew up with, until you live away for a while,then realise how special it is
My dad was in the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) 1932-1945 India & WWII. When he was old he was saying he couldn't get them to buy him a better hearing aid (he blamed the guns). I used to phone him for an hour from Canada every Sunday after I got in from my bicycle ride and shout at him. I don't mean I was annoyed. I mean I had to bellow "Hello Dad it's me Barry !!!!! How you doing what's happening there !!!!" for about an hour.
There is another gun, slightly shorter with a bore I could get my head in as a child. It has a narrower sort of cylinder at the back. I thought that it was the 1 o clock gun but it was actually used as a depository for sweet wrappers.
I saw the USMC, Silent Drill team perfom in the Military Tattoo there in 1976. I was so proud to be an American (1st gen American of Irish descent), I wanted to wear Dress Blues while fulfilling my military obligation (ask not what your country can do...). Mom signed me in at 17 and I have an Honorable Discharge, Sergeant (E-5) USMC. 79-83 Amazing the memories...
This was a practice Britishers adopted in every colony they ruled thak God these time keeper gun shots are not fired anymore in India especially Himachal / Uttarakhand which are the only few places where we can spend some time with peace 🙏
I love the way the unsuspecting birds that happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, appear to just drop out of the sky in the background! (2.10) Did someone shout “pull!”…. Ha ha!
If the Brexit chaos continues they'll soon aim for England. As an EU citizen I wish them the best in their endeavour to gain independence and rejoin the European Union.
@@Brandon_J incorrect. Before Scotland even existed the area around Edinburgh was populated by a people called the Britons. As a proud Scot I will not be offended if you call me British, but i will be if you call me English
Hate to be the family chilling in the backyard having a picknick when that rounds drops like volkswagen falling outa the sky🤣 Right, then, salute the queen propah! Kablooey, goes a family picknick😆😆
If I was a millionaire, I would own a French 75mm ( WW 1), a German 88mm (WW2) and an American 105mm( Vietnam) and enough ammo to fire a salute every sunrise and sunset from now till the day Gabriel blows his trumpet to signal the end of time.
It was originally for ship's captains sailing out from Leith to set their navigational chronometer. The gun is actually a back up system for the time ball on a tower on Calton Hill. In poor visibility you can't see the time ball from the Forth so the gun is also used. The Edinburgh time ball is a copy of the one at Greenwich.
It's a centuries old tradition so that ships in the harbour can set their clocks correctly or just know the time in general. It's a practice that existed in many places. Bare in mind that when it started, the castle itself was part of the outer city. There was no New Town on the other side.
