Thomas Watters

Thomas Watters, who has died aged 99, was the last survivor of the Scots who volunteered to go to the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War. He answered an appeal for volunteers while working as a bus driver in Glasgow and went on to drive ambulances in Spain several times, sometimes only narrowly escaping with his life.

He was born in Alloa in 1913 and brought up in Tillicoutry. From an early age he showed an interest in mechanics and first drove a bus in Tillicoutry when he was only 13. It was illegal, of course, but he said the rural constable didn't get up on a Sunday morning so he got away with it. It also meant that by the time he came to Glasgow in his early 20s he was an accomplished driver.

His first brush with medicine was when he was 16 and met a shepherd near Tillicoutry who suggested he take a first aid course with the British Red Cross. It became a passion for Mr Watters – so much so that when he returned from the Spanish front he considered a career in medicine. Daniel Stevenson, Chancellor of Glasgow University and head of the ambulance unit, was willing to sponsor him, but he decided he was too old.

When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936 Mr Watters was driving double deckers for Glasgow Corporation. He saw an appeal from the Scottish Ambulance Unit for drivers and answered it, saying he did not think twice. For him, his work with the British Red Cross had been leading to this point; it was for this kind of eventuality that he had been training.

He left for his first trip on September 2, 1937, driving through France and then through Valencia and into Madrid. The ambulances he and the other volunteers were driving were converted vans that could take four wounded men at a time. They would load the wounded on, drive them to hospital and then go back for more. He went back and forth to Madrid five times, most of the time bringing different vehicles back out to Spain.

Mr Watters recalled the carnage he witnessed. On one occasion he held a man's leg while a doctor sawed it off with no anaesthetic and last year he described vividly to The Herald what the battlefields were like. "You've got bombs and you've got shells – they're all enclosed in steel and iron, and when they burst all those jagged edges make a terrible mess of human bodies, but that is war. People don't realise how terrible war is but we don't see that at the time. We have to concentrate on what is the best thing to do to help."

He was nearly killed several times. "I had some very narrow shaves," he said.

"But that's the luck of the draw. I wasn't injured but I was damn near killed a few times. You take the same chances as everybody else – the war isn't going to stop because they see an ambulance and there's nothing else for it. You have to take your chance when you go into a target area."

For Mr Watters, his contribution to the 1936-1939 war was never about ideology; it was to save lives and alleviate suffering. "We were totally neutral. That didn't come into it at all. I wasn't the least bit interested in politics. The International Brigade was very political, of course, but we handled whoever was needed."

On his return to Glasgow after the war he was presented with an OBE by the city's Lord Provost. He was also handed a cheque for £10 by Daniel Stevenson and went on to work in the aeronautical industry for De Havillands in St Albans, where he lived for the rest of his life. By this time he had married Connie, a Londoner he met in Spain while she was working in Madrid deciphering telegrams. She died in 1989.

In 2009, Mr Watters and other surviving volunteers were awarded honorary citizenship by the Spanish government, and the following year he visited Glasgow for the rededication of the statue of La Pasionaria on the Clydeside, pictured. Throughout it all, he spoke of the pride he took in his role in the war. "We felt we did our bit," he said.

He also recently spoke of the lessons he felt should be learned from the conflict: "Peace should be our aim but it is very fragile and easily broken."

Mr Watters died at the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, after a fall at his home.