Killed on branch line not front line
Centenary of Ayr tram driver Hugh’s death
They said it was the biggest turnout for a funeral that Ayr had ever seen.
Thousands lined the streets as the whole town seemed to join with the grieving family who suffered a tragic loss in the dark days of World War One.
Their combined, heartfelt grief was for a popular and respected one of their own . . . Lance- Corporal Hugh Piper of the 4th battalion, the Royal Scots Fusiliers.
A tram driver with Ayr Corporation Tramways. Hugh, of Alderston Avenue, Ayr, left behind a wife and five children.
But Hugh did not perish on the killing fields of Belgium or France.
He met his untimely death at the age of 32 in an unexplained d troop train crash on the branch line of an Army training camp at Catterick, North Yorkshire.
The funeral cortege left Alderston Avenue for Ayr Cemetery after a brief service at the house conducted by Chaplain the Rev. Wm. Rainie, Ayr.
The cortege was headed byy a party of the RSF with arms s reversed.
A news report said: “A tramway y car, heavily draped, conveyed a number of mourners.
“A landau, bearing many y floaral tributes of respect to thee deceased’s memory, brought upp the rear of the solemn procession, n,
which was viewed by y thousands of sympatheticc onlookers.
“At the graveside the Rev Wm. Rainie again officiated: the usual three volleys were fired and the Last Post sounded.”
Today the tragedy has been all but forgotten.
For Hugh’s descendants, however, some of whom still live in Ayr, it was a memory passed to them by their mother or father . . . the five children left behind when Hugh died. And so for those descendants, the 100th anniversary of his death in SeptemberS this year will be part particularly poignant. One of those relatives is Wi l l i a m ‘ B i l l y ’ P i p e r , aged 68, whose father, a l s o William, was just s e v e n when his father Hugh died.
He said: “My father, and his brothers and sisters, never let their children forget the tragic circumstances of our grandad’s death and it is imprinted on all our memories to this day.
“My sisters and cousins have also been entrusted with reminders of our grandad Hugh, such as the pocket book he was carrying when he died, a letter dated October 13, 1916, from Catterick Camp to his sister Jenny in Ayr and locket size photos of him in uniform that he sent home.
“We even have the original telegram from the War Office informing his wife Sarah of the terrible news.
“She must have been devastated, not only to lose her husband in such a shocking way but to be left a widow with five children.”
It was in 1904 that Hugh married mill worker Sarah McConnachie, the daughter of mason John McConnachie and Sarah Wilson. Hugh and
Sarah had five children: Catherine Piper ( born 1905), William ( 1907), Hugh ( 1910) and twins John and Sarah ( 1914).
The horror crash happened on 15 September, 1917, as soldiers of the Royal Scots Fusiliers gathered in the darkness of the early hours with their kit on the military branch line station at Catterick Camp.
Carriages were lined up by the platform but, unbeknown to the troops, they were not linked to a locomotive.
In fact, the carriages had no ‘ brakeage’ whatsoever.
About 150 men had boarded the carriages when they began to move.
Hugh Piper’s fellow soldier and friend from Ayr, Lance- Corporal William Haswell, later wrote in a letter to Hugh’s wife Sarah that ‘ Hughie and me were sitting on our kitbags on the platform chatting’ when they got the order to board the train.
He added that Hugh stepped in to the carriage and he was about to follow him when the train started to move and he stepped off waiting for it to stop.
“It did not and continued to move faster leaving Haswell stunned.
The West Country and Galloway Journal reported: “The runaway carriages gradually gathered speed on a steep decline.
“At first the occupants were under the impression that their journey had begun.
“Before the carriages had proceeded far, the alarming truth was borne in upon them.
“They knew then that train had run away and they were helplessly faced with an uncertain fate hanging over them.”
Carriages sped at over 60mph for three miles when, approaching a curve, they left the rails and broke into pieces.
Lance- Corporal Haswell saw a man’s body being dragged from underneath a carriage and identified it as Hugh Piper.
Three other men died and many were badly injured.
Born in 1885, Hugh Piper was the only son of fishmonger’s clerk William Hugh Piper and Catherine Sloan, although he had five younger sisters.
He began his working life aged 16 as an apprentice coach painter with the Ayr Tramways Company, later becoming a conductor and then driver.
The 4th Battalion RSF was a reserve force and would have been used in defence of the country if the dire situation in Europe became a crisis.
In fact, on the day of the fateful railway accident, the men of the 4th Battalion were due to travel, not to the Front in Europe, but to Edinburgh Castle as a last line of defence.
“There is an awful irony in that fact, says Billy Piper.
“My grandfather and his comrades were going home.”