Here we go again, explaining to the colonials.
The word in Scotland is ususlly spelt ghillie
which is from the Gaelic. It originally in far and distant past(I mean 6 or 7 hundred years) it meant boy or a body servant to a highland gentleman i.e. a clan chief.
By the 19th century it meant someone who helped a hunter or fisher and acted as a gamekeeper. They usually wore (and some still do) heavy tweed clothing in appropriately colours to blend into the background.The colour "Lovat" comes from Lord Lovat who was chief of the Frasers and formed a group called the Lovat Scouts in the Army, they last fought at Normandy in 1944, but were disbanded after the war. They (the ghillies) also wore the above mentioned clothing when trying to catch poachers, of which there was a plague between the first and second world wars. The British Army adopted a version, not surprising as a large proportion of their expert marksmen were ghillies in civilian life. It was then called a gillie suit by the army.
End of lesson.

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Donald/Scotland


[This message has been edited by Donald Nicolson (edited 11 March 2005).]