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Every summer across Scotland, Caledonian culture is celebrated at local highland games and gatherings. Fulfilling a long-standing ambition, Hamza Yassin takes a trip to Royal Deeside to sample perhaps the most prestigious of them all – the Braemar Highland Gathering. In a spectacle of continuous competition, surrounded by athletics races, field events and colourful highland dancers. Hamza meets games vice-president Willie Meston to discover the 1,000-year history of clan gatherings in the heart of the Cairngorms that make up the games.

As the sound of the pipes swirls around the arena, historian Jack Davidson reveals to Hamza the origins of the games’ most iconic – tossing the caber. Over on the highland dance stage, Hamza meets 13-year-old Eilidh, who is hoping to be crowned champion in the presence of King Charles III. Hamza also meets the military muscle lined up for battle in the tug of war. Between the events, Hamza dips into the Countryfile archive, including when Charlotte Smith took a lesson in selecting and then tossing a caber and when John Craven visited the site of the Battle of Killiecrankie.

The Battle of Killiecrankie 1689, Alan B Herriot - By permission of the National Trust for Scotland
The Battle of Killiecrankie, Terence Cuneo - By permission of the National Trust for Scotland