An Eyemouth Maritime Family Story

The last meeting of our 2016-17 season is on Sunday 28th May at the Corn Exchange, Melrose, 2.30pm when the talk will be preceded by the Society AGM.

Please come along to find out what we have been doing and also about our plans.

Will Collin will present an illustrated talk on "William Collin and the ‘Christina Craig’ -  An Eyemouth Maritime Family Story from the Great War". 

2018 marks the 100^th anniversary of the loss of the Christina Craig, one of many Eyemouth fishing boats and crews which were signed up by the Admiralty to serve in the World War I Auxiliary patrol. Many photographs remain in the Collin family and are included in the talk.

Was there a Red Cross Volunteer in Your Family ?

The Red Cross have now made their World War I collection of records partly available with an index of World War I volunteers.

At the outbreak of war in 1914, the Red Cross formed a Joint War Committee with the Order of St John, raised funds, organised volunteers and paid staff to provide equipment and services in the UK and the theatres of war. Everyone was trained in first aid, some trained in nursing, cookery, hygiene and sanitation.

Most of the women became nurses, initially in hospitals in Britain, but as the casualties mounted, more were sent overseas to casualty stations on or near the battlefield or to hospitals. Many people offered their houses as convalescent homes for the wounded or as auxiliary hospitals; some town halls and primary schools were used too.

There were over 3,000 auxiliary hospitals across the UK. They were staffed by a commandant, a quartermaster, a matron, a cook and nurses. Local GPs often volunteered for work in the hospitals in addition to their ordinary work. The nurses were all volunteers, often they were too young or old or had family commitments to serve full-time. Male volunteers usually drove or accompanied the ill or wounded to and from hospitals, many acted as stretcher-bearers, a lot were sent to France as ambulance drivers, some being wounded in enemy action.

Volunteers also collected clothing and books for soldiers in hospitals, raised funds, made bandages and splints, acted as cooks, store-keepers, worked in the offices and just as importantly, provided food and cigarettes to soldiers arriving by ambulance train. One of my great-aunts married a soldier she met on such duty.

A lot of people were displaced by the war, in 1915, volunteers started visiting hospitals looking for people who had been recorded as missing; work that the Red Cross is still involved in. By the end of the war in 1918, 90,000 volunteers had worked in the UK or abroad. There were lots of famous volunteers including Agatha Christie and Vera Brittain, perhaps some of your family were volunteers.

To find out, use the index of World War I Red Cross volunteers..

You can search by forename, surname, location or hospital or role. The initial search takes you to a search results page that shows name, county, date of engagement, age when engaged. Clicking on the name takes you to a detailed page about that person.

The information provided comes from record cards and may include name, address, age, character, service dates, hospital, rank, pay, duties, commission, honours awarded. Pictures of the cards are also included. Annoyingly, first names weren’t always recorded, some just gave initials.

New Book: 'To Follow the Dogs and Carry the Stick', by Bob Jaffray

We've published a new book, 'To Follow the Dogs and Carry the Stick', written by one of our members, Bob Jaffray.

The book's subtitle is 'Glimpses of the Herding Life over Thirty Years in Lammermuir 1935-1965', and as a retired shepherd with a family connection to herding in the Lammermuirs going back to shortly after World War I, Bob recalls his memories of living in remote cottages high up in the hills and his subsequent life as a shepherd.

As he writes, ‘by the 1980s, a new mode of herding came into being with economic considerations dictating much larger farms and higher flock numbers ....’. Thus a whole way of life changed and herding techniques and skills which had evolved over hundreds of years are in danger of being forgotten. Bob's aim in the book is to preserve them for posterity.

Times were certainly difficult by today’s standards, all provisions and essentials being left at a neighbouring farm as the track to the cottage was effectively impassable, certainly in the wet. Remote as it was not though forgotten by the church, it being written into the minister's’ contract that he should hold an open air sermon on the top of an adjoining hill; Windy Law ‘to bring the gospel to the heathens of Rawburn’.

Bob recalls his life at Longformacus Village School with memories of fellow pupils and teachers. Most interestingly, he has included a full list of all who attended the school between the years 1937 and 1945. The figures themselves reflect the period, the number of new admissions (normally 6 or 7 per year), triplicating in the years 1939 and 1940 because of evacuees from the cities.

There are recollections of the effects of World War II on such a rural community and how the effect of rationing was not as severe as elsewhere. In 1943, Polish troops were billeted at Longformacus House and the youngsters of the day seem to have mingled freely with the troops, been given access to the vehicles and shown their weapons.

After the War, working as shepherd with particular recollections of the harsh winter and the hardships caused. There is a detail of day to day life with all sorts of anecdotes and personal recollections thrown in as well as recalling the practices and methods employed in shepherding, now mostly overtaken.

Also included are Jaffray and Welsh (the author’s mother’s name) family trees and well as different maps of the Lammermuirs with copies of charts produced by the Blackface Sheep Breeders Association containing the names of different farms and occupiers, a glossary and more than 40 photographs.

 An enthralling read, even for people like me, whose knowledge of sheep is barely more than the taste on my dinner plate - certainly a must for anyone connected with farming, shepherding or the Scottish Borders.

The book is 94 pages long on heavy paper within card covers and costs £7.50 plus postage. It can be bought at our premises in Galashiels or by choosing the appropriate delivery option and pressing the button below.
Please note: World Zone 2 includes Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Oceania.
Europe includes Eire and Russia.
World Zone 1 comprises all other countries.

Delivery Options

Follow the Dogs - UK- 2nd class £9.50 GBP Follow the Dogs - EU Airmail £13.30 GBP Follow the Dogs - World Zone 1 £15.20 GBP Follow the Dogs - World Zone 2 £16.50 GBP Follow the Dogs - Surface Mail £14.80 GBP Follow the Dogs - UK- 1st class £11.10 GBP Follow the Dogs - World Zone 3 £15.50 GBP

Search the World War I Canadian Expeditionary Force Database

Do you have family members who went to Canada before World War I ?

Library and Archives Canada have created a new database of records of the World War I Canadian Expeditionary Force. 

Initially, Canada offered 25,000 soldiers for service overseas but that grew during the war to 619,636, of whom, 424,589 served in Europe. 

Volunteers were questioned at the place of enlistment to complete the two-sided Attestation papers which included the recruit's name and address, next-of-kin, date and place of birth, occupation, previous military service, and distinguishing physical characteristics, and their signature. 

Conscripted men completed a far simpler one-sided form which included their name, date of recruitment, and compliance with requirements for registration. Officers completed a one-sided form called the Officers' Declaration Paper. 



Search the World War I Canadian Expeditionary Force database.

Hawick’s German Prisoners - Stobs Internment Camp in Global Context, 1914-1919

During World War I, Stobs military training ground near Hawick was used as a mass internment camp for 4,500 prisoners; German civilian ‘enemy aliens’ who had settled in Britain before 1914 and were considered potential spies, civilian passengers and sailors from captured enemy ships, and military prisoners-of-war captured in Europe or at sea.

Although the majority of internees were German, there were some Austrians and some Turks.

There’s a free conference next summer about the Stobs camp, an opportunity to hear experts who have researched Stobs as well as camps in England, the Isle of Man, Ireland and others around the world, to see camp artefacts and perhaps to identify them, and visit the site with the Council’s archaeology officer, Dr Christopher Bowles.

If you have family members that worked at Stobs, or you’re descended from someone who was interned in one of the camps, I think you’ll find this conference especially interesting. Dr Bowles would also like to hear from anyone that has memorabilia relating to the camp.

Provisional programme.

The conference is on 18th and 19th June 2016 at Hawick. If you would like to attend, I suggest you register now at archives@scotborders.gov.uk

Review of Hawick Through Time by Alastair Redpath

Hawick Through Time book

96 pp. Illus. ISBN 978-1-4456-3915-4. Amberley Publishing,  2014. £14.99 plus post and packing. Available from Amberley Publishing, The Hill, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 4EP, England.

The book has nicely illustrated card covers. It begins with an introduction to the history of Hawick of almost 2 pages. The following 93 pages comprise clear 'then and now' photographs accompanied by explanatory text, mainly of places in Hawick. There are 8 pages to do with the station and the railway with a fine photograph of the steam engine, Lanarkshire, on its way to Edinburgh in 1959. There are a few pages covering sites outside Hawick, for example Minto House, Denholm, Cavers, and Stobs Camp, the army training ground in both World Wars and a camp for German prisoners-of-war in World War I.

I wouldn't claim to know much about Hawick but I've learnt a lot about Hawick, its buildings and the surrounding countryside from reading the book.

The only drawback is that the author, Alastair Redpath, hasn't included a map of Hawick, so unless you know Hawick well, it will be difficult to understand the lie of the land. I think the book would sell much better with a map and appeal to a much larger audience.

Even so, I thoroughly recommend it and it's suitable for young and old alike. I think it should especially appeal to parents who wish to encourage their children to read. It would make a nice Christmas gift, too.

If you're not from Hawick, or you haven't been there for a long time, you can see useful maps of Hawick on the National Library's website, for example, John Wood's map of Hawick, 1824, or the 1857-58 Large Scale Town Plan of Hawick. For a scrollable Ordnance Survey map of Hawick and the surrounding countryside, see our Hawick parish page.

Hawick Through Time is currently on offer through the publisher at £13.49 including UK post and packing.

Digital Map of World War I Projects

Who Do You Think You Are?  magazine has announced a digital map of World War 1 projects so that people can find out about projects near them or where their ancestors lived. They are restricting the map to projects, events, exhibitions, tours, memorials, websites, even walks run by volunteers or those managed by organisations but where most of the work is done by volunteers.
The good thing is that you can add your own project (use the Add Project link over the top of the map - don't try to open it in a different tab.) - extra publicity free.

View the map.

At the time I wrote this, only one of the several hundred projects is in Scotland (in Brora) and the nearest project to us is stated to be in Washington (Tyne and Wear) although its pin on the map is 56 miles away in north Yorkshire. It's probably a keying mistake but I've told the organiser anyway. That project is putting bronze resin poppies on houses from which men left Washington to go to war and did not return.

Clicking on the pin shows the organiser's email address and phone number. To search for nearby projects, click the Search box at the top of the map and enter your town name and or a maximum distance from your post code. The number of pins found is displayed below the search box, eg 11 entries. You'll need to close the Search form to see the map pin entries found.

New Commonwealth War Graves Commission Website

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has revamped its website.

Some of my great grandfather's family died in World War I and at least one in World War II, though so far, I've only found one casualty in one cemetery.
When I clicked on the cemetery plan link, it was unfortunately missing.

Also I expected to see a link to The War Graves Photographic Project but that has disappeared, too.

Unfortunately I don't like it as much as the old website but perhaps it'll grow on me.

I can't find the things I found before on the other hand I have discovered their information leaflets, which I never noticed before.

In providing more criteria to search on, they've made it more difficult - you need to enter the whole of a date instead if just a year. On the other hand, they're promising that the 'additional information' will soon be searchable and that will be a bonus.

Search the casualty database for yourself.

Also they want information from you, so complete their survey.

World War I British Nursing Service Records

The (English) National Archives at Kew have released over 15,000 First World War service records for nurses who served in the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (Reserve) and the Territorial Force Nursing Service.

The majority of the records cover the World War I period only, with some records before 1914 and some after 1918, till 1938.

The records show where a nurse trained, references relating to their suitability as military nurses, which hospitals, field ambulances, casualty clearing stations or other medical units they served in, what their superiors thought of them and when they left the services.

I ordered the records for 10 people, then found I couldn't download from the online page. However, the record of my order email contained download buttons to download each link separately and that was easy. However, if you're searching for a common name be careful that the download doesn't overwrite a set of files downloaded earlier.

The records appear to be free at the moment, but how long will that last ?

More information on the nursing service records
and the records for Marjorie Turton or search the nursing service records.

Disability Pension Files contain records relating to nurses.

See also their guide to British Army nurses and nursing services.

Burials of Fromelles Dead Begin

About 7,000 British and Australian soldiers were killed, wounded or taken prisoner in the July 1916 Battle of Fromelles, near Lille in northern France.

The BBC reported today that the remains of 250 World War I British and Australian soldiers, including several Scots, who were killed, and buried by German forces, have been recovered by archaeologists.

They will be reburied with full military honours at Pheasant Wood, a new cemetery built by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission close to the battlefield.

The burial begins tomorrow, 30th January and is expected to go on into February.

A special dedication ceremony will be held on 19th July 2010, the anniversary of the battle.

More information on the BBC and Commonwealth War Graves Commission websites.

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