Balfron mourns news of fallen hero

People in Balfron were 100 years ago this week mourning the death in action of L/Cpl Hugh McCallum, A&SH, whose, father, also Hugh, lived at Douchlage.

L/Cpl McCallum, who fell in France on October 23, 1917, worked for Glasgow Corporation waterworks before enlisting.

“He was a young man of good character and his death is a sad blow to his relatives,” said the Observer.

Mr McCallum had two other sons with the Colours. One had already been seriously wounded.

Pte Donald Johnstone, a soldier with links to Aberfoyle, was also reported to have been killed in France. The 20-year-old worked in Glasgow before joining up.

Word was received by Mrs John Hastie , Ladylands, Gatehouse, that L/Cpl Tom Richardson, A&SH, had received the Military Medal for Gallantry.

He was presented with the ribbon for the medal by the colonel commanding his division in the field.

L/Cpl Richardson enlisted in August, 1914, and had been on the Western Front for two years and six months.

Formerly a ploughman and a pupil of Arnprior Public School, he was home on leave in the preceding September.

In Gartmore, Pte William Ferguson, Royal Engineers, and Pte Duncan McLaren, Gordon Highlanders, were home on furlough.

In Doune, the call went out for a re-doubling of efforts to provide garments for the sick and wounded.

With winter approaching and with it the threat of exposure to the cold, the need for more clothing for the troops was acute.

At Woodside Cottage, Doune, the Misses Christie had taken on the task of giving out to volunteers items that could be used to make the necessary garments.

In Kippen, L/Cpl William Welsh, Army Ordnance Corps, looked fit and well as he visited family and friends in the village after a lengthy spell in France.

In Dunblane, Capt WL Gibson, of Road Corps, was home on leave and recovering from a slight wound to the face caused by shrapnel.

Cpl James McIntosh, Black Watch, had been allowed to return to Dunblane for a few days by a London hospital where he was receiving treatment.

It was, said the Observer, this gallant soldier who was presented with a gold watch from the widow of his officer, the late Capt Ferguson, for the devotion showed by Cpl McIntosh to him when he was mortally wounded.