Poetry of a private

Poems written by a soldier with links to Thornhill and Stirling were published in a book 100 years ago this week.

The author of “Comrades” was Pte Alexander Robertson who was reported missing in July, 1916, after he sent the poems from the Front in May that year.

His father was Mr Robert Robertson, former headmaster of the Edinburgh Ladies College, who was well known in the Stirling district. The poet’s grandfather, Alexander Robertson, was for 30 years blacksmith at Thornhill and 10 years as a tenant of Lots of Molland farm, near Callander.

Pte Robertson attended the universities of Edinburgh and Oxford before he was appointed lecturer in history at the University of Sheffield in 1914. He joined the Army in September of that year and saw service in Egypt in 1915. He was invalided to a hospital in south of France before proceeding to the Front.

The Observer said: “The poems are of unusual promise. They remind us sadly that the flower of our intellect as of our athletes was to be found in Kitchener’s Army.

“The training camps of England, the sand deserts of Egypt, the sunny spots of France all figure in the melodious reflections of this soldier-poet.”

Several of the poems were said to be lit by humour while others were laced with “courage and lofty seriousness”. In “Lines Before Going”, he writes: “Soon is the night of our faring to regions unknown/ There not to flinch at the challenge suddenly thrown/By the great process of Being – daily to see/The utmost that life has of horror and yet to be/Calm and the masters of fear.”