I attended the Requiem Mass in Peebles today for a friend, Peter McCann, a great pioneer in the treatment of Drug and Alcohol Addiction. May his dear soul rest in peace.
Peter was also very keen on heraldry, a member of the Heraldry Society of Scotland and a multiple-petitioner of the Lyon Court for his family and treatment facility.
His coat of arms, granted in 1996 is: Argent fretty Azure on a fess of the Second a Maltese cross of the First between two gridirons Or.
Peter petitioned for his business, Castle Craig Hospital a private residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic and was granted arms in 1991 (vol 75/fol 80):
- The 12 Steps; (in chief)
- The Butterfly, signifying new life;
- The Scottish Saltire of St. Andrews;
- The symbolic serpent-entwined rods of Asclepius, the Greek God associated with healing and medicine;
- The Camel – which can travel a long way, one day at a time without a drink;
- The Mustard Tree which starts as a tiny seed and grows into a big tree where the birds of air nest – this is like our recovery starting as a seed which then nurtures and supports others.
- Heading up the coat of arms is our motto ‘Let Go Let God’ – an AA slogan so important in recovery.
- When Peter was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, entitling him to a canton of the Order in chief, he commissioned an impaled painting of his arms from the eminent Serbian artist, Ljubodrag Grujic, in 2017.
