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
It's My Scarf
I have a long multi-coloured panel stripey scarf. It's not actually all the colours of the rainbow. I like it. But it's not any kind of a statement. Sadly, some people think it is. I had one particularly nasty encounter at a street crossing. There was a guy there who looked as though he wanted to ask me something but couldn't decide if I was the kind of person who would tell him the time or give him street directions or whatever. I asked if I could help him. This resulted in a tirade of abuse and fist waving. Maybe he was just crazy or perhaps he thought my scarf was saying something he didn't approve of. As I say that was most unpleasant reaction but there have been others, both negative and positive. I'm told if I don't want a reaction I shouldn't wear that scarf anymore. But it's my scarf and I like it.
Plowing On
One of the interesting things about Canada is some folk use US spellings and forms while others go for British. Most of the spelling is British. The few exceptions in the Canadian English dictionary that spring to mind are plow, for plough, and tire for tyre. A lot of the vehicle-related terms are the US ones, hood for bonnet, trunk for boot, etc and of course, automobile for car. I think that just illustrates the dominance of the US car industry in Canada. For a while the national news agency, the Canadian Press, insisted on using US spelling but I think that was just because they couldn't be bothered correcting the spelling in the reams of US pap they insisted in foisting on us. All of the above is pretty harmless. But when some folk do their dates in the American format month- day-year and some use the British day-month-year, confusion can break out. Imagine having a card that was supposed to expire on 1st February this year, 1/2/2025 and someone reading that in American sees it as the 2nd January and announces the card has expired. From now on I'll get them to write the month in full.
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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