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
Helping Themselves
I'm fairly sure the author Charles Dickens was sceptical when it came to organised charities. He thought the first call on money donated was for the charity's supposed expenses. And I'm fairly sure too that a reasonably recent survey of major charities showed only about 10% of the money they collected actually went to helping people. The rest went on wages for themselves and administrative costs. It would not surprise me. Certainly, watching the charities in my area I have come to the conclusion that the welfare of those in need of help comes way second to the welfare of those employed by the charity. For instance, I don't think administrative talent is hereditary, so mother-daughter management teams causes my eyebrow to raise. Now I'm sure there are some genuine charities out there who really do want to help and don't use other people's misfortunes to line their own pockets. So, how about this - to be a registered charity an organisation must pay no more than minimum wage to any of its employees. That should weed out a lot of the profiteers. As one man who genuinely wanted to help once said There's A Lot Of Money In Poverty.
Gratitude?
A while back an acquaintance asked me to help shift a table from her flat to ground floor of her towerblock. Why not. It would get my good deed of the day done before lunch. Now, a lot of people would show their appreciation with a five dollar bill - less than the cost of a pint of beer these days. I'd decided to reject the offer. It's not a good deed if you get paid. But there was no offer. I think she'd mentioned I wasn't the first person she'd asked that morning to help move that table. Maybe the others had helped her move tables before.
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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