A number of folks on the Community have asked where my fighting spirit comes from and about my mindset to overcome adversity and look for the positives in my journey?
Well its in my family DNA.
In 1889 my Grandad Charlie was born. The top picture shows him with his pipes, the tall Piper in the centre of the middle picture and the final picture shows him with his 3 brothers - he is the one on the left standing with his left arm missing.
In 1914 at the age of 25 he signed up and joined the First Gordon Highlanders as a Regimental Piper, a very important part of who the Gordon Highlanders were.
At the battle of Mons he was captured but escaped by squeezing up the chimney of the the little house where he was kept prisoner and crept back across enemy lines to his unit.
He went on to be at the battles of Petit Morin, Ypres Salient and Wytschaete Ridge where he was wounded in both legs and hip but returned for the second battle at Ypres Salient.
He then spent 6 months on the muddy fields of Flanders. He was saved from having his feet amputated by a innovative Canadian doctor who developed a new treatment for trench foot.
He returned to France the following year with the Second Gordon Highlands and at 7.30am on the 1st of July 1916 - Piper Charlie leapt over the parapet and under a hail of machine gun fire played the regiment’s marching tune, The Cock o’ the North leading the Second Gordon Highlanders on the opening assault of the Battle of the Somme.
Reports said that he ‘piped like a man possessed’ as the rest of the Highlanders, the ‘kilted tigers from hell’ with bayonets fixed charged past him. Piper Charlie played until his bagpipes were ripped apart and his left arm was torn to pieces. He fell into a shell hole badly injured and alone, but had the presence of mind to use his rifle”pull-through” as a tourniquet to slow the rapid flow of blood. He was found later that evening by an old friend and was taken to the field hospital. He was a deaths door but after a long convalescence he made a remarkable recovery.
He returned home and become the ‘postie with the one arm’ walking miles each day for 32 years regardless of the highland weather or the pain he had in his feet. My Grandad and Grandma went on to have 10 children, 24 grandchildren, 56 great grandchildren and now a 100+ great, great grandchildren. He died at 67 when I was just 1 year old before I had the chance of sitting at his feet and get to know him. But one thing I was always told was that my grandad always said that his strong faith in God was one of the driving and supporting forces that got him through.
I can also trace my family history to my Great, Great, Great Grandad George who fought with Vice-Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 then in 1815 was on the front lines as a Piper with the 92nd Regiment of Foot (Gordon Highlanders) who fought with the Duke of Wellington against Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo and again, against all odds he survived.
Surviving is in my family DNA.
