The Scottish Military Research Group - Commemorations Project

Adam Brown

The Northern Times today reports that there will be a special ceremony taking place in Brora on 1st January to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the unveiling of the Clyne War Memorial:

http://www.northern-times.co.uk/News/Ceremony-to-commemorate-unveiling-of-Brora-War-Memorial-27122012.htm

Here is the text of the article which doesn't mention that it has been orgnaised by the recently formed group the Friends of Clyne War Memorial:

Next Tuesday there is to be a special ceremony commemorating the 90th anniversary of the unveiling of the Brora War Memorial.

The Northern Times of 28th December 1922 carried a report of the dedication and unveiling of Clyne War Memorial at Brora by Mrs Thomas Matheson of Dalchalm on Christmas Day 1922. She had lost three of her children and a son-in-law and as the scale of her loss was immeasurable she was asked to carry out this unveiling ceremony.

As 90 years have passed since this event it was felt appropriate that the community should mark the occasion by laying a wreath on behalf of the village of Brora in the Parish of Clyne.

And, like the march from the Drill Hall to the Memorial some 90 years ago when the Pipe Band led the procession, Corporal Colin Simpson, an instructor at the Army school of piping at the Redford Barracks in Edinburgh, will play a lament.

Lieut Col A Macaulay, TD, represented His Grace the Duke of Sutherland as Lord Lieutenant of the county in 1922, and Dr Monica Main, the current Lord Lieutenant, has accepted the invitation to address the folk of the parish, just as her predecessor did 90 years ago.

At the initial unveiling by John Ross, chairman of the Memorial committee, he said: “Memorials such as this are not necessary to keep alive in the hearts of the present generation the memory of their gallant deeds and heroic sacrifice as these are ever before us.

“Such Memorials are for our children’s children, to remind each succeeding generation that, at a great price, they obtained their freedom. Engraved on this Memorial are names representing the various units of the British Army and Navy. . . Today as you walk through the quiet churchyard, most of the Memorials there are to aged men and women but here we have a Memorial to the young, cut off in the midst of their years, their days untimely ended.”

Little was Mr Ross to know that the 61 names of dead of The Great War would be followed a mere 23 years later by another 18 young men of the parish who died fighting against the tyranny of Nazism.

And then in the Gulf War, the village lost another young man…all are commemorated on the memorial.

Village folk and visitors are asked to gather at the memorial at 4pm for a short time, as Mr Thomas Matheson, grandson of the lady who unveiled the memorial in1922, lays a wreath on behalf of the Parish of Clyne. This is a token of gratitude for the sacrifice made by the community in wars through the ages.

And from the memorial, young and old will head to the river mouth to celebrate the start of a new year of village life with the now traditional bonfire and fireworks.

This photograph of the 1922 unveiling comes courtesy of the Grant family in London, Ontario, whose ancestor William Grant emigrated from Brora to Canada. He joined the 8th battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and lost his life in Flanders. He has no known grave and his name is not only on the Clyne memorial but also is one of almost 55,000 on the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing in Belgium.