Bearsden War Memorial

  Photo from Charterhouse School Archives, who retain all rights, please do not copy ( link ) In August 1940, John Thomlinson was a very new recruit in the Black Watch, having joined as a private in the last few months.   He was 20 years old and had just passed exams at St Andrews University as part of his year of studying for a Master of Arts.  In his first year he had studied  Latin at junior Level and , English Literature and Moral Philosophy  at Ordinary level (thanks to Sarah Rodriguez, Muniments Archivist at St Andrews University for retrieving this information and explaining the three levels of course at the time were Junior, Ordinary and Honours). From the St Andrews Citizen, 15th June 1940 He lived in St Salvatore's Hall of Residence. However, early in his military service he was taken ill and admitted to Gleneagles Hospital, Blackford.   He died on 31 st August of broncho-pneumonia, myocarditis and bronchiectasis. Gleneagles Hospital was the we...

I am indebted to numerous people for the information used in this profile of Eric and his parents.  Please see the list at the end of the post - thank you all. Eric Wotherspoon was the last of the 148 people named on the Bearsden War Memorial to die.  He was a Sub-Lieutenant in the Engineering Section on board HMS Arbiter, an aircraft carrier, in January 1946.  On the 30th, while the ship was docked at Belfast, he was relieved at 8am from his watch and was not seen alive again.  The ship sailed on 2nd February for Portsmouth - she was to be handed back to the American government the following month, from whom she had been temporarily British under the Lend-Lease Scheme. On March 12th his father received his personal effect with a communication he was missing.  On 30th March his body was found by the Oil Jetty in Musgrave Channel, Belfast; this is probably near Belfast City Airport. Five days later his body was buried at City Cemetery, Belfast. Prior to joining t...

William George Buchan died aged 29 on Thursday 12th October 1916.  He was a Second Lieutenant in the 7th Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders in the line near Warlencourt, which is at the centre-top of this map showing the Somme battlefield of 1916: The campaign had begun on 1st July 1916 and involved continuous British attempts to breakthrough the German line.  Progress was slow, costly and in its final stages - all told over 95,000 British and 20,00 French troops were killed (according to Wikipedia). On the map above there is a very straight road shown in grey running from Albert (centre-left of the map) to Bapaume (top-right).  The next photo shows the view looking north-east along this road near Warlencourt (which is to the left of the road) and, to the right, a feature in the landscape labelled "ancient tumulus" (a tumulus is an ancient burial mound): The Butte de Warlencourt is depicted here, shown in white on the horizon (possibly owing a little to artistic license, it ...