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
Maxwell Madness
I was a little disappointed when the paper I worked for, the Edmonton Sun, was taken over in 1998 by a company called Quebecor, at that time one of the biggest commercial printers in the world. It was how that had become such a big deal in the world of printing that that worried me. They had gone into partnership with millionaire crook Robert Maxwell. It seemed to be me that either Quebcor had known that Maxwell was a crook and didn’t care. Or they didn’t know and they were idiots. Either way, I was not happy. The Department of Trade and Industry had warned back in 1971 that Maxwell should not be allowed to head a publicly quoted company. And here were his main business partners buying us. It was no great surprise when a few years later the Sun was sold off and absorbed by its rival The Edmonton Journal.
Relative Stupidity
A lot of parents think their darling little kids are the greatest thing since sliced bread. That's fine - unless these parents are journalists and decide to interview their supposedly cute little darling on air. I think the rest of us quickly cotton onto the fact that little so-and-so isn't exactly genius material - or that cute. I don't think it's a co-incidence that the journalists involved are often also really really bad at their jobs. I can think of one who literally doesn't know what day it is and advises people to ignore traffic lights if the roads are quiet. He also frequently interviews his wife as a sort of Jill Average. And don't get me started on the Kenyan who talks on air like she just came from a Home Counties Pony Club meeting but when she interviewed her kid sounded like she came from ..... well, from Kenya. A sad case, I fear, of someone hired on the Never Mind the Quality, See the Colour principal. When someone benefits from so-called positive discrimination many others are discriminated against. And my bet is that with the implosion of professional journalism there were plenty of recently redundant British reporters who were more worthy of the job.
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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