How I came to play a part in BBC’s Monarch of the Glen
ONE day while driving along miles of gravel roads spanning the estate, we passed a group of people milling around film cameras and lights set up in the grounds. ‘What’s going on over there?’ I said.
‘It’s the BBC crew filming Monarch of the Glen,’ Dougie said. ‘They’ve been here for three years now. Have you never heard of Glenbogle?’
During my time at Ardverikie I got to know The Monarch of the Glen film crew reasonably well and often watched the actors from a distance. One day as we were passing the film crew on our way to feed the deer, a woman appeared from their hut and came running towards the Land Rover.
‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Could we have a word with Portia?’
She made me a cup of tea and then said: ‘The script writers are thinking of adding a new character to the series and, as one of Scotland’s few female gamekeepers, we feel the series could base some of our storylines on your life. What do you think of that?’
I nearly choked on my tea. ‘You want to base a character on me? I can’t believe it, but yes, that would be amazing.’
For the rest of the morning I answered a stream of questions about my life and my work as a gamekeeper, while the script writers made copious notes. A few weeks later, the actor Rae Hendrie, who was to play Jessica Mackenzie, turned up on the film set.
Slightly to my disappointment, she did not look like me at all. But when the new series of Monarch of the Glen aired later that year, we all crowded into my cottage to watch it together.
Jessica’s storyline involved her being given the cold shoulder by the men on the estate. However, slowly but surely, she showed them that she was just as capable as they were.
And as the series progressed, the men came to accept her and gradually she became a strong and self-assured character.
It was great fun to watch – I never missed an episode – but Jessica’s story was only very loosely based on mine.