Kintyre commemorates centenary of Passchendaele
DESCENDANTS of some Kintyre First World War heroes are paying tribute to the sacrifices they made 100 years ago.
Karen Blake from Clachan will travel, this weekend, to a special ceremony at the Menin Gate memorial in Ypres, Belgium, for the national commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the 3rd Battle of Ypres 1917, known as Passchendaele.
Karen won her place, by ballot, for the event William and Duncan Mackinnon are remembered on the war memorial at Kilcalmonell church. where she will also join Farm, near Langemarck, 4,000 members of the in the phase of families of the fallen at the war called the Battle the Tyne Cot cemetery of Poelcapelle. to remember them. Karen plans to try to
Her great-uncle Duncan find the site, and will Mackinnon, whose be going to a museum family home was at and other commemorative Balinakill, Clachan, events while died in the battle, aged she’s in Belgium. 30. He was a lieutenant Duncan’s elder brother in the Scots Guards. William, a captain in
Duncan has no known the London Scottish, grave but is commemorated had died a few months on the memorial. earlier in the battle of He was killed by Arras. The brothers’ German shellfire on deaths are commemorated October 9, 1917, while on the gates of reaching his platoon’s Kilcalmonell Church objective at Louvain with 13 other men from Clachan who died in this First World War.
There is a special monument dedicated to Duncan outside the church grounds at the foot of the cemetery on the hill out of the village.
A four-times rowing ‘Blue’ at Oxford University, Duncan was on the winning boat race crew three times from 1909-11. He also won a gold medal for Britain in the 1908 Paris Olympics.
Karen says: ‘These events totally shaped my family history.
‘Peter, my greatgrandfather’s second son, had died in the Navy before WW1. By the end of 1917 three sons had died in the service of their country.
‘My grandmother Gladys Pollok, née Mackinnon, became the eldest living of her siblings’ generation and lived for many
These events totally shaped my family history Karen Blake
years at onachan. She never spoke about the war, but Duncan’s rowing oars were kept hanging on the hall wall. Her scrapbook has no entries from 191 to 1918 then it is full of letters from friends tenderly celebrating the Armistice.’
Karen still stays nearby at South Lodge, onachan and several other Mackinnon relatives are still associated with Clachan.
Many of the 1 names on the Clachan war memorial remain familiar in the locality including Kelly, MacCallum and McKinlay.
Private Colin McAlister, of the Argyll and Southern Highlanders, who died in 191 was a great-uncle of the Weirs, a well-known Clachan family. Colin is buried in the village cemetery which is a Commonwealth War Grave and his relatives still have the ‘Widow’s Penny’ bron e pla ue and certificate of commemoration of his service to his country.
obbie Semple, from Glenbarr, is currently undertaking a cycle ride from Perth to Portsmouth and then on to Passchendaele, as part of the Crieff emembers commemmorations, following the embarkation route taken by the men of the First World War.
The group left on uly 19 and are expected to return on uly 30.
As chairman of the Glenbarr War Memorial Trust, this is special for obbie, as two locals died at the time, one of them his own grandfather’s brother, who was killed at Passchendaele.