WHEN Private David Wyllie of the Black Watch died during the Battle of Arras in 1917, a letter was found in his pocket. Addressed to his sister, it was never finished but, 100 years later, it gives a poignant glimpse of what life was like for the 29-year-old Scot and other soldiers like him on the Western Front during the First World War.
“I have only very little time just now so cannot give you a long letter,” it reads.
“We had anything but a pleasant time of it. I expect we will soon be going on again but we can never tell. I would not mind if I was at home now.”
The letter – which was found in the pocket of Private Wyllie’s uniform after he died at the front on April 23, 1917 – now belongs to his great-niece Margaret Barr and it is always an emotional experience for her when she reads it. Her great-uncle left the family farm in North Berwick in pursuit of adventure, she says, but she believes that, after two years on and off in the trenches, it must have been very hard for him at the end.
This weekend, Mrs Barr’s husband the Rt Rev Dr Russell Barr, who is Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, will be leading Scotland’s centenary commemoration service in Arras and will read a prayer which he has specially written for the occasion.
But Mrs Barr will also be taking the chance when she is in France to visit her great-uncle’s grave and lay flowers there. “It will be a very emotional day,” she says. Mrs Barr says she always knew her grandfather’s brother had been killed during the war but it was only eight years ago when she was visiting Ypres that she started to feel a strong connection to him. “That was when it really hit home that he had died in the First World War,” she says.
Mrs Barr has since pieced together some of what happened to her relative, although it has not been easy as his records were destroyed in the Second World War. What is known is that he signed up voluntarily into the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders on June 3, 1915.
“He was 27 and I believe he signed up because he wanted adventure,” says Mrs Barr. “He maybe thought ‘I’m fed up on the farm. I would rather go and do something else’.”
Two years later, and now with 1/7th Battalion Black Watch, he was in the midst of the Battle of Arras, which lasted for 39 days from April 9, 1917, and had a higher concentration of Scottish troops than any other battle of the First World War.
Thirteen days into the battle, Private Wyllie was injured in the foot and was at a casualty clearing station the next day when it was shelled. He was injured in the abdomen and later died, aged 29.
A telegram, which was dated 30 April, 1917, was sent to his family informing them of their son’s death.
Mrs Barr says it was particularly sad that her great uncle was killed as he was being moved to safety. “I have often thought about how sad it was and that so many people died,” she says. “If you read the history, you get this immense feeling that people were just sent out to get killed.”
Mrs Barr says she also feels privileged to be able to lay a wreath at her relative’s grave at Duisans, one of the many Commonwealth graveyards in and around Arras, as well as take part in the commemorations of the centenary this Sunday.
“It is important to remember the battle and the huge numbers that died,” she says. “It was the highest death rate per day of any battle, although it didn’t last as long.
“It’s also important to mark the centenary because we always said ‘we will remember them’. And my father would be so proud to know that one of his family was there on this day.”
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