It takes a real man to wear the kilt

Feb 23 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

On every foreign field, where their tartan is buried, can be found a little bit of Liverpool. A new book tells of the city’s famous Scottish soldiers. David Charters reports

THE silver-haired chap, sitting proud in his blazer and shuffling through the photographs of heroes, is not by God’s calling a wearer of the kilt.

This could be because his knees are sensitive to the cold, or the fact that his young nose sniffed the sullen grey of the industrial Mersey, rather than the chilly burns gurgling through the Highland heather.

But the very sight of the Forbes tartan still stirs the soul of Dennis Reeves, historian to the Liverpool Scottish, who knows the faces on the photographs, as though they were personal friends.

And in a sense they are. For with his new book about their commando operations in the Second World War, Dennis is ensuring that the coming generations will know a little of the bravery and the sacrifices made by these soldiers for this country in the name of our city.

He is also curator of a little museum dedicated to their deeds, beginning with the Boer War at the start of the 20th century.

Now many foreign fields are haunted by the laments of these men, in those hidden places, where they left their blood and their tartan.

People settled in Liverpool for different reasons. Some were destitute, others were fortune seekers. History speaks particularly of the Irish, who came in great numbers after the Potato Famine and gave the city its Catholic tradition. Their songs, poems, gab and bitter/sweet jokes are still central to the Liverpudlian character – once bubbling and brooding along the river, now just as likely to be found in the suburbs.

The Welsh were the builders, from whose schools and hymn-shaken churches of black Bibles, red bricks and wool-shone pews, strode new generations of teachers, solicitors and doctors.

All this was made possible under an English sun by the native genius for commerce and administration.

Maybe this is an over-simplification, but it holds some truth.

But where, in this romanticised history of Liverpool, are the Scots? The answer is found in three words – the Liverpool Scottish.

Most, though certainly not all, hurdled over the border to help the Sassenachs run their banks, hospitals, shipping offices and other businesses.

Sassenachs was the slightly derogatory Scottish dialect word for the Saxons, often applied in a wider sense to the English.

Many Scots quickly prospered and a joke popular among them tells of Jock returning home for a holiday. “What are the English like?” asks his mother. “How would I know,” he replies, “I haven’t met any. I only deal with the heads of department.”

Despite much success, often placing them solidly in the middle-classes, these ambitious men wanted to retain their Scottish identity, while recognising that their contributions were to the UK as a whole.

In 1859, fears that Napoleon III of France was planning an invasion of the UK started a flap. The Liverpool Scottish Rifle Volunteers (XIX Lancashire) was formed into Highland and Lowland companies with the young Queen Victoria’s approval.

However, the true history of the Liverpool Scottish as an infantry battalion began in 1900 during the Boer War. The 8th (Scottish) Volunteer battalion, the King’s Liverpool Regiment, had an annual subscription of 10 shillings (50p) and an entrance fee of £2. The first commanding officer was Colonel C Forbes Bell, from whom they adopted the Forbes tartan. The full Highland dress uniform featured a khaki tunic with scarlet collar and facings together with a feather bonnet or glengarry and tartan plaid. Twenty two of them went to South Africa with the Gordon Highlanders.

Headquarters were established in Fraser Street, Liverpool, and in 1908, on the establishment of the Territorial Force, it became the 10th (Scottish) Battalion, the King’s (Liverpool Regiment).

From the start, Liverpool Scottish men served in the Great War – doctors, accountants, bankers and cashiers, with polite handshakes and soft accents. But class differences counted for nothing when they advanced towards the Bellewaarde Ridge in the Belgian village of Hooge, with Bibles in their kit-bags and the kisses of children and sweethearts still warm in their hearts. They were as decent a bunch of chaps as you could ever meet – rugby players and psalm-singers.

Their attack on that June 16, 1915, was just a sideshow of the big slaughter at Ypres, or “Wipers” as the tommies called it.

Twenty three officers and 519 men, all wearing the green/blue Forbes tartan, started running towards the enemy lines. By the end, 188 of them were dead or missing and 212 were wounded. The Liverpool Scottish Battalion had almost gone. But there was a determination to keep the name going, so another battalion was raised. By 1918, they had formed three battalions, all volunteers. Some 10,000 men had served in them and 1,100 were killed.