- Location: Spean Bridge, PH34 4EG
- Opening times: 24 Hours
- Entry: No charge
- Access: Onsite car park
Monday, 8 January. The Christmas holidays are officially over, and my wife and daughter are back at work and school respectively. Outside, every tree branch and blade of grass is dusted with frost and every spider’s web exposed, but nothing glistens as it is all blanketed by thick fog. When I turn on the car the temperature gauge clocks in at 0°C.
After a lay-off over the festive period it is time to bag some more brown signs, and according to the BBC Weather App there should be blue skies at my destination for today, the Commando Memorial at Spean Bridge. It a drive of over two and a half hours, but aside from a slow crawl along a stretch of the A82 after Tarbert the roads are wide open and I make good time, although I was sorely tempted to stop at several sites in Glen Coe as the scenery was gobsmackingly stunning. By the time I hit Fort William the BBC proved to be on the ball, as the mist was gone and the sun shone down. It was still cold at the Commando Memorial, the temperature having now dropped to -2°. The fact that the monument is located on high, exposed ground doesn’t help. I’m layered up on top, but a pair of trusty Levis is no protection against a wind with this much bite. I’m wearing boxers in long johns weather, and, yep, I am fully aware how wimpy that statement is standing next to what might well be Britain’s Most Rugged Statue.
The Commando Memorial is located here because of its proximity to both Achnacarry Castle, which served as the Commando Training Centre during World War Two, and Spean Bridge railway station, where new recruits first arrived. It stands 17-feet tall and features larger-than-life bronze sculptures of three commandos gazing south over countryside in which their real-life counterparts trained. They wear WW2-era combat gear, including their distinctive cap comforter headwear. The figures are imposing without being colossal, and I have admired them since first seeing them on a postcard sent to my parents in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Is it shameful to admit that at the time I thought the three commandos looked like giant Airfix toy soldiers, a first impression that I have never quite shifted? The statues are of course far more detailed and lifelike than Airfix figures, but they strike similar stock heroic poses.
The sculptor was Scott Sutherland (1910 – 1984), a graduate of the Edinburgh College of Art who had served in the forces during WW2 and had worked alongside commandos. He was also responsible for the bust of Admiral Thomas Cochrane I came across during my walk round Culross, but the Commando Memorial is surely his most iconic work and his masterpiece. It was unveiled by the Queen Mother in 1952.
The central figure of the trio has a craggy charm and looks like someone actor Patrick Allen would play, but the face belongs to one Jack Lewington. Talking to the Sunday Post in 1990, he recalled that towards the end of the war he and colleagues Jock Moore and Taff Jones were sent to the gymnasium at Winchester Barracks. There they were photographed from all angles while they stood on top of a table in full battledress. Lewington was aware of the statue being unveiled in 1952, but it wasn’t until he visited decades later that he realised that the memorial was the purpose behind for that 1945 photoshoot and that he and his old army buds were the unknowing models. Various sources agree that Lewington is the central figure, but several contenders have been proposed for the other two men. Despite Lewington going with Moore and Jones – and it doesn’t help that he gave them stereotyping forenames – Wikipedia suggests Frank Nicholls (“rank unknown”) and Regimental Sergeant Major Sidney Hewlett, but provides no source. Meanwhile, the Commando Veterans Archive acknowledges Moore and Jones as possibilities but adds another couple of names to the list.
A steady stream of people stop at the monument during my visit there, which is not bad going for a statue in the middle of nowhere (okay, a mile north of Spean Bridge) in the depths of the Scottish winter. I don’t know whether they are stopping to pay their respects, or to admire the memorial as art, or to soak up the fantastic scenery, but it is nice to see. Between this and the paper poppy wreathes encircling the base of the plinth, it is clear that, in Laurence Binyon’s immortal words, “At the going down of the sun and in the morning / We will remember them”.
Destination or Diversion?
The Commando Memorial is a striking work of art set amidst glorious surroundings but it still counts as no more than a distraction, albeit a must-see one.
