First World War

The E Alan Mackintosh project (http://www.eamackintoshproject.com) celebrated the life and work of the amazing World War One poet E A Mackintosh, and the centenary of his death at the start of the Battle of Cambrai 21 November 1917.  Brighton-born poet E Alan Mackintosh enlisted in the Seaforth Highlanders in the First World War.   He also served on the Somme and on Vimy Ridge in 1915 and 1916.

“Tosh” had strong family ties with the Alness area and learned both to play the bagpipes and to speak Gaelic. His poetry featured a wide range of themes, such as courage, fear, exhilaration, loyalty, sacrifice, loss, comradeship, duty, love, broken relationships, parody and so on. These themes are as vivid and compelling today as they were 100 years ago. His work deserves to be more widely celebrated, and this is what this project was all about.

I also participated in a project about the Iolaire, singing for performances in Edinburgh and Stornoway. The Iolaire was a ship returning to Stornoway on New Year’s Eve 1919, packed with homeward bound servicemen, which foundered on sharp rocks just outside Stornoway Harbour with terrible loss of life.

The loss of the Iolaire (“Eagle”) is like a metaphor for the First World War.  The Iolaire, originally a luxury yacht, and the regular ferry, the SS Sheila, both left Kyle of Lochalsh on New Year’s Eve of 1919.  The men they carried were mostly Royal Navy reservists who had been serving during the war.  Some men switched vessel to travel with brothers or cousins, which added to the subsequent tragedy.  In worsening winds across the Minch. the Sheila arrived safely, but the Iolaire arrived off Stornoway slightly, and critically, out of course, and was wrecked on the Beasts of Holm just 20metres off-shore. 

It was around 2am and pitch-black dark. Over 200 men were drowned, and only 79 survived. John Finlay Macleod, from Ness, helped save about 40 men by swimming ashore with a rope, which other men were able to use to pull themselves through the raging waves.

My great-uncle – my maternal grandfather’s only brother – was killed on 30 November 1917 at the end of the Battle of Cambrai. This was just 9 days after E A Mackintosh, in the very same ten-day battle, creating a personal link – as well as a fascination with the quality of his poetry – which had sparked my interest. I have paid homage to the losses of this particular battle through regular visits to the area, spanning decades now.

My periodic visits always take in the dawning of the day. I go to ridge crest where my great-uncle was encamped, a neat target for the start of the dawn German counter-attack. The ferocity of the bombardment is clear from the masses of large and contiguous craters, which remain clear to this day. His Battalion were obliterated. There was no body, not a button came home. He is commemorated on the semi-circular Memorial to the Missing at Louverval west of Cambrai, along with 7000 others who are forever “missing”. Please click here for my poem as part of the 14-18 Project “Letter to an Unknown Soldier”, written in honour of my Great-uncle.

Philippe led arrangements for the 100 year commemorations of the Battle, and I was privileged to sing both at the Cambrai commemorative dinner and at the Memorial to the Missing: this was the singing of my life. The commemorations – with local events and tours – have since become annual. I contribute to the local dinner and the Flames of Memory commemorations, and it’s notable that the preference is always for songs in Gaelic – songs like Cumha Mhic an Tòisich and Cumha Mhic Criomainn, laments of course. It was also an amazing experience to sing at the new Museum for Deborah. I will however draw a veil over the stuck in the mud incident at Rue-des-Vignes – only too many people already know the story.

On holiday in 2017 and visiting the tiny coastal Inuit community of Rigolet in Labrador, we were astonished to find a WW1 exhibition, and that – of the eight men they sent to WW1 – 4 were killed, all of them in 1917.  Almost incredibly, two of them were killed in the Battle of Cambrai.  both of them were with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, and both were killed on the same day, 20 November 1917 – the start of the battle of Cambrai.  As part of our 100^th anniversary visit to Cambrai to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of my great-uncle’ death, we were able to visit the grave of one, and the commemorative plaque for the other as he has no known grave.  We sent pictures back to the community and it was a special honour to be able to do this, 100 years after the death of their ancestors.

Our family lost three great-uncles to the First World War, all in the latter part of 1917.  One at Rouen (died of wounds), who had a body and a headstone, one to the 3^rd Battle of Ypres, at Poelkapelle (Passchendaele).  One third of all the British dead in WW1 died at Ypres, in the terrible mud.  What a bleak autumn and winter that must have been.  I determined that, as far as was possible, we should walk the line of the last day of each of them, exactly 100 years later.  The great uncle killed at Ypres has no known grave.  So many men died at Ypres with no known grave that the Menin Gate arch was not big enough for all their names to be inscribed.  Another two-thirds are listed at Tyne Cot outside Ypres – the biggest British military cemetery in the world.  He is commemorated at Panel 77.  When my husband and I first visited Tyne Cot, we assumed – with so many panels – that his must be near the end.  So, to find his name, we started at the end.  The last panel, with two high columns of names, was Number 164: so Panel 77 is in the middle, not the end.

My involvement with Cambrai introduced me to new friends – two amazing Belgians, Luc and Johan Vanbeselaere, who have recreated the WW1 tank that was the centre-piece of their Ypres village of Poelkapelle which you can see here: https://tankpoelcapelle.be/en/TankMonument.  In 2019 I was able to visit Ypres and join their special commemorations at Poelkapelle to sing at a number of events from dawn onwards.  Subsequently the pandemic made live 2020 and 2021 events impossible or inadvisable, but we hope that this will change in 2022.