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Linklater's Scotland - Scottish regiments
Magnus Linklater
Columnist, Scotland on Sunday
This article, which was originally
published in the Spectrum section of Scotland on Sunday
on 1st May 2005, is reproduced on Land-Care with the kind permission
of the author and the newspaper.
Filed 5th May 05
DOWN the main street of Cowdenbeath strides Major
Bob Ritchie of the Black Watch, an icy wind pulling at the red hackle
on his bonnet. He is clutching a bull-horn in one hand and a pile
of leaflets in the other. Spotting a small group of shoppers seeking
protection from the cold in a bus shelter, he turns his megaphone
in their direction. “People of Cowdenbeath,” he commands,
his parade-ground voice drowning out the sound of the traffic. “You
have been with us for 300 years. If you vote for Gordon Brown, that
relationship will come to an end. Don't vote Labour!”
Magnus Linklater
At the Scottish Press Awards 28th
April Magnus Linklater
won the Lifetime Achievement award for his contribution to Scottish
journalism -
a well deserved honour.
Land-Care greatly appreciates his generosity in letting us reproduce
the articles
in this series which he writes as columnist to Scotland on Sunday
So fierce is his gaze, so peremptory his order,
that even the shoppers forget the cold for a moment and stare in
undisguised curiosity at the man with the red hackle. Whether they
are concerned about the end of their 300-year relationship is hard
to discern. But at least they have received the message. And lest
they fail to grasp its full significance, Major Bob thrusts into
their hands a leaflet bearing the picture of a young jock in Basra,
also wearing the red hackle, his arms around a couple of Iraqi youths.
It bears the slogan: “He would give his life for you - give
him your vote. Don't vote Labour. Vote for Scotland's regiments.”
Behind Ritchie, on the pavement, follow half a
dozen old soldiers, cheeks mauve with the cold, dressed variously
in corduroys and wind-cheaters, but all bearing that unmistakable
bonnet. They stop and chat to small knots of curious residents.
Some appear baffled, some indifferent, but nearly all the older
ones stop to shake their hands, swap stories about Black Watch relatives
or friends, and wish them luck. Whether they will obey Major Bob's
strictures to vote against Gordon Brown in his home constituency
of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath is doubtful. But if sympathy could
guarantee votes, the Save Scotland's Regiments campaign would be
home and dry.
This, however, may be the last hurrah in the long
and glorious history of a proud regiment. For 280 years (the regiment
was formed on May 12, 1725) the Black Watch has seen action, from
Ticonderoga to the Triangle of Death, from the Boer War to the streets
of Belfast, from Quatre Bras to Korea. Now it faces its last and
most bitter battle.
There was something enormously poignant in the
sight of half a dozen elderly men, who might, in other circumstances,
have been sitting back in quiet retirement, making this last stand
in defence of their comrades. They know that there could have been
500 or more men at their backs, those serving soldiers who almost
certainly feel as strongly as they do, but who are prevented by
their terms of service and the strictness of their orders from voicing
an opinion in public. And so it is that Sergeant-Major Stewart Bett,
Warrant Officer Bob Scott, Brigadier Garry Barnett, Bandsman Fred
Robb, Captain Owen Humphrys, Major Colin Innes and Lance-Corporal
Andrew Danks, along with the redoubtable Major Bob, have taken to
the streets of Cowdenbeath.
Their message is anti-Labour, not because of their
own political convictions (one of them, Scott, is a former Labour
councillor), but because it is a Labour government that has signed
the regiment's death warrant by announcing the amalgamation of the
six Scottish regiments into a single unit. Their anger at the decision
is based only partly on emotion. Of course they feel strongly -
there is nothing, not even perhaps the bond between a football fan
and his club, to match the loyalty felt by old soldiers to their
regiments. But what has moved them to take their campaign to the
country has been what they see as the illogicality, the blindness
even, of the government's decision.
Brigadier Barnett, who has argued the case directly
with defence secretary Geoff Hoon, with General Mike Jackson, architect
of the new reforms, and most of the regimental colonels who have
signed up to the new structure, believes that the single regiment
idea is a disaster. “The formation of a Royal Regiment of Scotland
[its proposed new name] and the disbandment of our local regiments
destroys our links to our local communities, and recruiting is likely
to suffer.”
He argues that the Ministry of Defence could achieve
the same degree of efficiency it is aiming for by keeping the existing
six regiments within the Scottish Division, with its headquarters
in Edinburgh Castle. “The new structure is in every respect
virtually identical to the old one, but it removes the vital links
to local communities and changes the name. What in the end does
it achieve? Why try to fix something that isn't broken?”
He points out that the new regiment would have
five different roles, which would be very similar to the current
six regiments and their roles. “I can't understand in the end
why they are doing this. I've asked Jackson and he hasn't answered.”
“There is a hidden agenda,” says Scott
darkly. “It's all part of a plan to cut us back and back until
we can't do anything, then they'll make us all part of a European
regiment.”
He argues that one of the great strengths of the
present system is its inter-regimental rivalry - the spirit of competition
that helps keep them all up to the mark. And he is bitter about
the way that the Ministry of Defence has prevented the regiments
recruiting properly by starving them of funds. “They've been
turning the tap on and off,” he says. “Because of that,
recruiting inevitably has been down. You've got soldiers on £250
a week, which is less than a bus driver gets. It's not surprising
that numbers are down.”
Like the rest of them, Major Innes believes the
infantry is already over-stretched, and that there has never been
a stronger case for maintaining the battalions. “With the threat
of world terrorism, there is a need for men on the ground. I feel
very let down by the Army Board. They should have said no to Hoon.”
Brigadier Barnett agrees. “It is madness
to cut the infantry at a time when they are already overstretched.
There is meant to be a two-year interval between operational tours,
but these have been getting shorter and shorter. Cutting the battalions
makes this situation worse.”
Although this is a Black Watch bus - sometimes
loaned out to other regiments - he is particularly concerned about
the proposed amalgamation between the Royal Scots and the King's
Own Scottish Borderers. “How can they axe the Royal Scots,
with their history?” he asks. “It's almost unbelievable.”
He pays tribute to Humphrys, whose grandfather
was Field-Marshall Lord Wavell, and who not only funded the campaign's
battle bus, but also contributes unbridled enthusiasm to the cause.
“The Black watch is fighting tooth and nail,” says Humphrys.
It was Wavell, first commissioned into the Black Watch in 1901,
who once observed, “The regiment is the foundation of everything.”
And he may well be proved right in the end.
By now, it is nearly one o'clock, and the team
has regrouped around the battle bus, where they pose for pictures
in the biting wind. Next stop is Burntisland, where they hope to
catch up with Gordon Brown, who has been cast as enemy number one.
“This is not the end by any means,” says Ritchie. Then
he adds, thoughtfully, “But it may be the beginning of the
end.”
“Hopefully we are not too late,” says
Scott, “but if the worst comes to the worst, the day they carry
us out in a wooden box, I will still be wearing the red hackle.”
This article:
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/spectrum.cfm?id=460262005
Earlier articles in the series
 1.
Linklater, Magnus (2005). Linklater's Scotland. Scotland on Sunday
20th March 2005
See SOCIAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL Homepage, filed 24 Mar 05,
www.land-care.org.uk Click
Here to View
2.
Linklater, Magnus (2005). Linklater's Scotland - Easter in Easterhouse.
Scotland on Sunday 27th March 2005
See SOCIAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL Homepage, filed 31 Mar 05,
www.land-care.org.uk Click
Here to View
3.
Linklater, Magnus (2005). Linklater's
Scotland - Farming. Scotland on Sunday 3rd April 2005
See SOCIAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL Homepage, filed 07 Apr 0505,
www.land-care.org.uk Click
Here to View
4.
Linklater, Magnus (2005). Linklater's
Scotland - Pitlochry. Scotland on Sunday 10th April 2005
See SOCIAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL Homepage, filed 15 Apr 05,
www.land-care.org.uk Click
Here to View
5.
Linklater, Magnus (2005). Linklater's
Scotland - Supermarkets. Scotland on Sunday 17th April 2005
See SOCIAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL Homepage, filed 19 Apr 05,
www.land-care.org.uk Click
Here to View
6.
Linklater, Magnus (2005). Linklater's Scotland - Kelvingrove. Scotland
on Sunday 24th April 2005
See SOCIAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL Homepage, filed 29 Apr 05,
www.land-care.org.uk Click
Here to View
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