This is a rugged coastal community on the Firth of Clyde, overlooking the Isle of Bute with the jagged crags of the Isle of Arran in the distance is a place where if your surname is discovered to be Campbell, you are treated coolly at best and with open hostility at worse. So this week I adopt my wife’s Dutch family name or claim to be Canadian saying “eh…” a lot.

Not many Scottish villages have a plaque commemorating the signing of a truce agreement only to have the locals summarily executed and thrown into mass graves by… the Campbells. We were “the bloody sisters of the night” in the 11th and 12th centuries and certainly earned that name. There was not a truce we recognised without a feast that brought dual elements of deception and slaughter. Some of the accounts of that time make the Taliban look like Boy Scouts. I shudder to think of clan Campbell with RPGs and/or Sidewinder/Stinger missiles.

Visiting the clan seat Inverary Castle, the ancestral home of the current 13th Duke of Argyll 40 miles from here, the reception is a tad nicer and history very much sanitised. Even the castle brochure’s aerial photo shows the grounds and building bathed in sunlight as the rest of the area sits in shadow, behind clouds. It’s almost beatific looking until you realise the history.

You can drive to most places and local Calmac and Western Ferries shuttle between 60 and 200 cars per hour to and from points across Scotland. Yesterday the agrarian and picturesque Isle of Bute and Rothesay Bay were the destination of choice. Tomorrow it’s off to the Isle of Mull and Iona via Oban.

Just as the UK Royal family still refers to the Revolutionary War as “the difficulties with the colonies,” the Duke and Campbells of Argyll speak of the castle, its interiors, the 12 preceding Dukes to live here and the region without mentioning the ‘difficulties’ we caused. It is all quite revisionist and cleansing actually and they think they pull it off.

They are the witty lot at the castle. When I arrived and mentioned my ancestry, being members of the clan thanks to the migration in the 1700s of a black sheep member of the clan to the island of Jamaica and the thousands of progeny from his 10 children with a local woman of the time, the woman at the ticket office said, “aaah yes, reporting to headquarters are we?”

As we toured the castle we saw the photos of the Duke and his two smiling young children. The woman guarding the room with the clan silverware and gold plates on the table said proudly, “yes, we have an heir and a spare.” Seeing the quizzical look on my face and admiring her own considerable wit, she pointed out that had the Duke failed to produce a male off-spring, the title (and castle) would go to someone else in the clan.

Talk about pressure. Imagine that pre-marital conversation, “darling, I love you and how do you feel about MALE children?” Are you willing to try no matter what or how long it takes?” Because we can only live in this castle if you bear me a male child…”

Alas it was success at first go and you can visibly see how much easier life is for the 13th Duke of Argyll. So we’ll bring you up-to-date on these environs during the coming weeks.

Thankfully our neighbours, six local seals, pay us no mind, even when bringing food and sun themselves gloriously (except today, when I asked the gardener about the weather he derisively said, “it’s not green, it’s mold”), on the rocks outside, making quite a ruckus hissing and snorting at each other if one takes up too much precious rock space.

Now that a glorious full moon has risen and the lighthouse is shining out across the bay, I will sleep well tonight hearing the waves lap against the shore, regardless of my chequered background.

Let’s hope everyone else can as well.