AS PROMISED - SAMPLE CHAPTER FROM SCOTTISH MILITARY DISASTERS - > Book Extract
* He was an Eighteenth Century Scottish Forrest Gump - Stobo
** Here's one that combines Canadian and Scottish themes - Tunnelling for Victory
*** Those who enjoyed reading about the Royal Scots’ Armistice Day battle with the Bolsheviks in 1918might be interested in the same fight as seen from a Canadian viewpoint - Canada’s Winter War
***** Read about the blunder that made Canada an easy target for invasion from the United States - Undefended Border
****** Read about the Second World War's Lord McHaw Haw
******* Serious questionmarks over the official version of one the British Army's most dearly held legends - The Real Mackay?
********** It's been a while since I posted a new article. This one's called Temptation
********** Read about how the most Highland of the Highland regiments during the Second World War fared in the Canadian Rockies - Drug Store Commandos.
************* We now have a Guide to Scottish military museums on this site.
************** Just weeks before the outbreak of the First World War one of Britain's most bitter enemies walked free from a Canadian jail - Dynamite Dillon
*************** Click to read - - Victoria's Royal Canadians - about one of the more unusual of the British regiments.
*************** Read an article about the Royal Scots and their desperate fight against the Bolsheviks on Armistice Day 1918 - Forgotten War A second article, looks at the same battle but through a Canadian lens .
***************No-one has got back to me with a German source for the claim that the kilties during the First World War were known as The Ladies from Hell . See My Challenge to You
***************** A map showing the old Scottish regimental recruiting districts can now be seen by clicking Recruiting Area Map .
****************** The Fighting Men 1746 article now includes the estimated strengths of the Jacobite clan regiments which marched into England in 1745 See Clan Strengths
****************** **I've posted a fresh article - Scotland’s Forgotten Regiments. Guess what it's about.
******************** The High Court Hearing in London in May 2012 attracted a lot of visitors to this site. See Batang Kali Revisited
********************* Why not have a look at Book of the Year
Posh Speak
I heard a senior British government advisor on the radio recently. She spoke with a pukka Pony Club accent until after she got to her fourth or fifth sentence. Then her Ulster accent became more and more obvious as she spoke. I thought it was sad that she felt she had to hide a part of her identity in order to get a good job. I recall that several of the more successful folk from my home down spoke with accents that were sort of Scottish but not identifiable with any region. I wonder if their "success" could be attributed to their non-accent. Or perhaps it was more due to them being the sort of highly driven ruthless individuals who were prepared to sacrifice part of their identity and heritage on the altar of careerism.
Cone Heads
So, Scottish football fans at the World Cup started putting orange traffic comes on the heads of American statues. That apparently went down OK in Boston. Not so much in Miami. For once I have some sympathy with the Yanks. There's a question here of cultural sensitivity. The traffic cone thing appears to have started in Glasgow City Centre with the statue of the Duke of Wellington. There can't be many alive today whose blood would boil at that. In fact, I'd be hard put to think of any statue in Scotland which should never ever be coned. But Americans, especially in Miami, might feel differently if they felt one of their historic icons was being disrespected or ridiculed. It's their country and they have feelings, which should be respected. The Tartan Army's statue high jinx stateside have apparently led to an outbreak of coning across Scotland. Apparently some folk in Edinburgh are not too happy about this resurrection of Keelie Culture. Or is it called Weedgie Culture these days?
Shameless Plug #9 - With Wellington was among the books recommended as an excellent Christmas present by the prestigious The Society for Army Historical Research. There was another mysterious surge in sales of With Wellington last summer. At the end of May it was the third best selling book about the Peninsular War on the website of one of Britain's biggest booksellers and Number Eighteen in the table for all Napoleonic books. Last December's sales surge turned out to be a combination of the venerable Scots Magazine declaring it Book of the Month in its January 2015 edition and a highly favourable review in the Napoleonic Association's newsletter. Scots Magazine's reviewer, nature writer and author, Jim Crumley, declared "I don't much care for military memoirs, but I could not put this one down". Other reviewers have been equally enthusiastic - "If you are interested in the memoirs of British soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars this book is a MUST!... You don't get many Napoleonic memoirs as good as this" and "It is the most candid memoir of the British Army I have ever read... does not pull any punches ... highly entertaining, but also thought provoking..." To have a look at the full reviews check out more about With Wellington
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