I CONGRATULATE George Devlin on his erudite and obviously deeply-felt letter on David Cameron's attempt to hijack the centenary of the start of the First World War for narrow political ends (Letters, October 13).

If there is any justice, this attempt to divert the Scottish electorate just before the independence referendum will backfire on the Prime Minister.

In our local cemetery is a memorial to a well-loved local doctor who died in 1925, many years before I was born. It is obvious from the inscription that he was a man whose life was one of service and self-sacrifice. Also inscribed on the stone is a memorial to his son who died in the First World War aged 18. The boy was a 2nd lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps and was on secondment from the Cameron Highlanders. He also bore the surname he got from his father, Loanhead's own beloved Doctor Cameron.

When I think of that tragic war, I think of a good doctor ministering all those years to the medical needs of a small mining town while carrying with him his grief at the loss of a boy who had not yet begun to live.

I fancy David Cameron's thoughts will not turn to a humble physician in a wee Scottish town and the terrible sacrifice he and thousands of other humble people made.

David C Purdie,

12 Mayburn Vale,

Loanhead.

I DO not agree with Donald Kerr's assertion that David Cameron's wish to commemorate the centenary of the start of the First World War on the anniversary of its historical date is in any way a cynical attempt to have an impact on the forthcoming independence referendum (Letters, October 13).

The cynicism lies with our First Minister who has chosen to wrap himself in the Saltire in 2014 in a blatant attempt to hijack public opinion by embracing the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles and the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn to underpin the final weeks of his independence campaign.

Ronald J Sandford,

1 Scott Garden,

Kingsbarns.