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SANDYHILLS schoolboy War. Millin and Lovat remained Bill Millin would grow up to friends for many years, and when be one of the most famous Lord Lovat died in 1995, it was figures in Scottish war Millin who made the long journey history, immortalised in film, song from Devon, where he had moved and even in bronze when a statue years earlier, to play a lament at was built in his honour in France. the funeral.
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Born in Glasgow in July, In 1962, Millin played 1922, “Piper Bill” was himself in The Longest the man who played the Day, the film based on the bagpipes as Lord Lovat Normandy landings. There and his commandos stormed is a statue in his honour in the the Normandy shores on D-Day. Normandy town of CollevilleMontgomery Dodging bullets and bombs, he and his outstanding marched up and down Sword courage was also portrayed in a Beach, earning the respect of set of stamps issued by the Isle his comrades and the Germans of Man on the 60th anniversary watching. Later, German prisoners of the D-Day landings. In 2006, confessed they had not shot him Devon folk singer Shelagh Allen because they genuinely thought he composed the song The Highland was mad. Piper in his honour.
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A talented musician, Millin The pipes were blown up was taken on by Lovat as by a mortar bomb four days his personal piper in the 1st after D-Day but Piper Bill Special Service Brigade. On survived the war and moved D-Day in 1944, he was only 21, to Dawlish where he lived with his and wore the kilt his father wore wife Margaret. He died in August in Flanders during the First World 2010, aged 88.