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November 8, 2003, Scotsman OLDEST VETERAN'S TRIBUTE TO FALLEN Gethin Chamberlain THE leaves on the trees of Perthshire are turning red and orange and yellow, just as they were on that morning, 85 years ago, when the guns fell silent and the First World War came to an end. It had been four years since Alfred Anderson marched off to war with the rest of his friends in the Black Watch, four years in which millions died in the fields of Flanders and France. When the firing finally came to an end, most of his friends were gone and Alfred had been invalided back to Scotland. The years slipped by. Each time the calendar showed 11 November, he joined the survivors, and the families of the fallen, to remember those who had gone. Every year there were fewer and fewer who had fought in the trenches. As time passed, the numbers have dwindled. Soon, there will be no-one left who remembers how it was to face the German guns. But Alfred still remembers. He celebrated his 107th birthday this year, the oldest man in Scotland. Tomorrow, if his health allows, he will join the veterans of the wars that followed the war to end all wars in another service of remembrance. He was at home in Alyth in Perthshire yesterday, reluctant to dredge up memories he has tried hard to leave behind. "The memories, yes, I've tried to live them down all these years, but they've been revived over the past years too," he said. "I'm trying to get away from it again, but I can't because I'm a member of the Black Watch at Perth and there is always something going on there they require me for." He did not know whether he would be up to another service: last year, he was too unwell to attend. "I don't know yet - I live from day to day now," he said. If he does make it, he will be the only one there who served in the First World War. His friends are all gone, a long time ago. "I'm the last one in Scotland, I believe," he said. "They are all gone. "I was only 18 when I went to France, just 18, 18 in June. I went in 1914. I went home after I was wounded. One or two of my friends came through, but not very many. I haven't had any communication from anyone since, they all dispersed in their various ways of life. "I'm glad I managed to get through, but I'm sorry to see another war going on." Mr Anderson was born in Dundee in 1896, one of six children. He left home for the trenches, joining up with the 5th Battalion, the Black Watch. For two years, he endured the hell of the trenches, serving for a while as the batman to Major Fergus Bowes-Lyon, the brother of the future Queen Mother, until the major was killed at Loos in 1915. The following year, a piece of German shrapnel ended Mr Anderson's war. He was in a listening post in No Man's Land when a shell exploded overhead, killing several of his friends and injuring many others. A sergeant by then, he had to lie for hours among the bodies until it was safe to get him back through the lines. He was taken to a field hospital, but was too badly injured to return to the front. Invalided out, Mr Anderson became an instructor and ended the war a staff sergeant. Later, he took over his father's joinery business. When another war came, he did what he could, helping to set up Home Guard units. He went on to marry and have five children. At the last count there were ten grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren. Susie, his wife of 62 years, died in 1979. Five years ago, France awarded him the Legion d'Honneur for his services during the First World War. He has been visited by the Prince of Wales, but a planned meeting with the Queen Mother was postponed when she fell ill, and she died before it could be rearranged. The war took the lives of 8,000 Black Watch soldiers, their names etched into war memorials dotted around the towns of Fife and Perthshire, it left another 20,000 injured. Across Britain, only 27 men survive from the 5.7 million who served in the Great War. According to statistics published by the War Office in 1922, 702,410 lost their lives and 1.6 million were wounded. Three will be driven past the Cenotaph in London tomorrow in an open-top vintage car to represent those who served in the Great War, the first time in ten years that veterans of the 1914-18 conflict have joined the march-past. As the last survivors fade away, Mr Anderson hopes people will remember what he and his friends went through, even though so many family lines were ended by the sacrifice. But although Mr Anderson remembers, part of him wants to forget. "I thought I had managed it," he said. It was the Gulf war this year that brought back the memories as the Black Watch went into action in Iraq, a campaign the veteran soldier watched concerned for the safety of another generation sent abroad to fight. And now he is not sure how many people still understand the need to remember those who fell. "People forget. There is no doubt about that. Take me personally. I was 18 and I got through it, but how many didn't? "People have lost interest in the war since then."
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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