‘You've survived 550 miles with me, how about a few more?’: The NHS doctors who said yes to love while retracing the flight of Bonnie Prince Charlie

Bonnie Prince Charlie was the heir to the exiled Stuart dynasty and he is well known in Scotland for his attempt to take it back, in 1746, aged just 25. It was unsuccessful, resulting in his flight from George II after suffering defeat at the Battle of Culloden, in Inverness. The young Prince spent five months as a fugitive, relying on crafty disguises and those brave enough to help him evade capture in the Highlands and on the surrounding islands. Despite the £30,000 bounty hanging over his head (worth around £7 million today) he wasn’t caught and was safely smuggled back to France — never to return.

This is not what most people would use as inspiration for a proposal. And yet, it was after retracing Bonnie Prince Charlie’s steps that Jack Galsworthy got down on one aching knee and proposed to Jess Morris with a ring made out of a stem of grass. It came as a complete surprise. She said yes.

Jack is from Cornwall; Jess is from Newcastle. Both are NHS doctors who met in their final year of medical school, at King’s College, London, three-and-a-half years ago. Their second date was a three-week trip around Ireland in Jack’s camper van. Hardly keeping it low-key.

‘It was quite an intense start, in a way, but it went well,’ Jess says with a smile when we meet. ‘After that we did long distance for a couple of years, because I was working up in Newcastle, Jack in Cornwall, and this last year we've finally come together.’ The couple has recently moved into a house in Cornwall. Describing the moment, Jess recalls: ‘He said [the walk] was an audition — that was his leading line into the proposal, like: “You've survived 550 miles [with me], how about a few more?”’

It had been Jack’s plan all along to propose at the end of the trip, which the couple were inspired to take on by Jack’s father, Micheal, who is now 81. He retraced most of Charlie’s flight while at university in the 1960s, equipped only with a black labrador, a friend who worked for the National Geographic, a fishing rod and a gun. ‘I grew up hearing his stories about it,’ Jack says. ‘For example, he decided to carry all of the dog's food — two weeks worth of dog food on his back! He realised it was a bad idea after day one, so gave the dog two weeks worth of food in one sitting and then let the dog sleep in his tent — go figure.’

The pair wanted to be faithful to Micheal’s journey, but faced limitations. ‘He tried to live off the land as much as possible. Obviously you can't do that now, and so we just took a fishing rod and lots of freeze dried food,’ and ‘a huge supply of whisky’. ‘We were lucky, we had lots of companies who sponsored us,’ Jack says. ‘It seemed like a good way to connect with my father,’ he adds. ‘We would try to FaceTime him when we had signal to show him where we were and, because he's so familiar with Scotland, it meant a lot to him.’

The trip came about because of the opportunity to take a year-long sabbatical. Jack and Jess had just finished their foundation year training and were locuming (taking on temporary doctors roles), mostly in A&E clinics, and travelling in between. ‘I've had patients describe [A&E] to me as Jurassic Park and a war zone at times,’ Jess says. ‘It’s a difficult time for medicine, but people always try and do their best for the patients.’

The trip itself was unique. ‘To our knowledge, nobody's ever really retraced the full route that he did,’ Jack says. ‘So we went off and we did it. It took 38 days of walking.’ Jess adds: ‘I was really, really keen. We have had a bit of time off work this year, and we've done a few other really lovely things, but this was always the bit I was most excited for, so it didn't really take any convincing.’

‘None at all?’ I ask, wondering if the most relaxing break from A&E is trudging around the Highlands, very possibly in the rain. She relents. ‘I mean — the original plan was to be as self-sufficient as possible on the trip, but I was very apprehensive about the “hanger” and being really hungry, so I was worried I’d be terrible company. Once Jack put together a full proposal of the food situation, then I was on board.’

‘One of our sponsors was Tunnock’s, so we got sent 200 caramel bars and teacakes,’ Jack adds happily, with the smile of a man who is partial to a teacake. ‘We were trying to showcase what Scotland's got — what we’ve got on our own doorstep here in Great Britain — rather than having to travel across the world. At the same time, a lot of people aren't aware of the history on their own doorstep. Outside of Scotland, people haven’t really heard of Bonnie Prince Charlie and arguably one of the greatest and the longest, most famous manhunts in British history.’

I ask the pair why they think this is. ‘Probably because, for ages, you weren't allowed to teach anything about the Jacobites,’ Jack replies. ‘It was mandated, after the Highland Clearances and following all the Jacobite rebellions — nobody was allowed to be taught anything about Jacobites or Scottish history. It all had to be English history. So I think, as a result, nobody in England really knows anything about it.’

‘I'd never heard of him before Jack pitched the idea to me,’ adds Jess, ‘but it's been such a fascinating part of history to find out about. The route is long, 550 miles, and contains plenty of famous hiking routes, such as The Great Glen Way and The Hebridean Way, but it also stretches into much more remote regions, which was hard at times.’ Jack already had a torn rotator cuff in his shoulder before they began from an accident a year prior and Jess almost ended up with trench foot. ‘We only had six days of hiking where it wasn't raining. Everything was wet from day one all the way to the end, pretty much,’ Jack says.

Jess adds: ‘It was relentless, putting wet socks back on every morning. We had a few occasions where we pitched our tent and then it rained overnight and we woke up in what I can only describe as a small pond. And, we had a small tent because we were trying to be careful about the weight, but it was a logistical nightmare at times as we’re both quite tall.’ Jack is 6ft 1, and Jess is 5ft 8. The biggest problem, however was being bitten to death by midges and — worse — the ticks.

‘I had 180 ticks in total at the end,’ Jack says. ‘Jess had quite a few too. We ended up with over 200 ticks between us. So we're living off doxycycline antibiotics at the moment.’

Ticks, trench foot and incessant rain — is this what convinced Jess to say ‘yes’ when Jack popped the question?

‘Yes, it was,’ Jess says. It is clear the walk meant the world to the couple who, despite the hardships, count the trip as one of the best things they’ve accomplished together. Jess also credits it with strengthening their relationship. ‘We knew each other, obviously, very well, but checking each other for ticks every morning and every evening, especially when you haven't showered for about 10 days and you just feel horrendous — it's quite a bonding exercise.’