大象传媒

My father served with the Kirkintilloch Battalion of the Royal Artillery (TA), in the 52nd Lowland Division, as such he was mobilised on Friday 1st September 1939. His regiment was sent to France, as so many thousands of others were. When it came to the dreadful evacuation at Dunkirk,his regiment
was detailed off to defend the rear of the evacuation, to ensure no attack from that quarter.
Coming to the end of the evacuation, as the Germans were closing in on them, it became obvious my father's regiment was going to be trapped, as indeed they were. They could not leave their guns, as the guns are the 'colours' in the R.A. and to lose your 'colours' in battle is considered shameful. They were told they were now on their own, there was no help coming for or to them, they must get away as best they could in their own way ! For ten days my mother and my grandmother were frantic with worry, they had no idea where my father was, whether he was alive, captured or dead. Just an aside here, my mother had taken on the job of caretaker at the Falkirk Masonic Hall to earn a few extra shillings. She had to be there at 7am, to ensure all was clean and tidy for the office staff to come in at 9am. Ten days after Dunkirk, my brother and I (aged ten and twelve respectively)called in to the Halls to see my mother before continuing on to school, as we did every morning, this particular morning we found her in floods of tears. She had taken a call from someone in Cambridge University to tell her my father (and his comrades) were safe and in Cambridge University. They were not allowed to tell her any more than those bare facts. We found out much later that my father and his comrades had made it, after many trials and hardship, to Cherbourg, where a friendly fisherman had taken them across to England under cover of darkness. How they got to Cambridge remains a mystery, but the students willingly turned out of their beds,in the middle of the night, and gave the soldiers food,drinks and a bath and the use of their own beds.
I watched the recent broadcasts by Professor Richard Holmes on Famous Battles, one of which was about the evacuation of Dunkirk. I watched this one avidly, because I thought such an eminent man as this would surely mention what had happened to my father's regiment, but no he didn't. So I wrote to him and received a charming letter back to say he did indeed know all about "the gallant men of the 52nd Lowland Division".
That is the one and only time I have heard any mention whatsoever about this event at Dunkirk. Everyone concentrates on the dramatic events of the evacuation, I have no problem with that, but I do have a problem with the constant ignoring of the men who were left behind to their fate.
My father died of a massive heart attack in 1951, aged 45, the Doc told my mother this was directly attributable to the trauma he had suffered during the war.

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