More heartache for tiny village

An Ashfield soldier was named as the fourth from the tiny village to die in World War One. Residents Mr and Mrs McIntosh received a telegram from the War Office informing them their grandson, Pte James Sharp, Black Watch, had been “dangerously wounded” and was in hospital in Rouen. Twenty-four hours later they received another communication to say he had died the previous day. The 23-year-old, who had previously worked with Pullar’s, was mobilised with the Territorials and went to France three and a half years earlier. He had been home on a month’s leave a short time earlier.

News was received by Mrs R Dryburgh, of Braehead, Doune, that her husband, Robert, a private, suffered wounds in what the Observer called the “second victorious battle of Marne”. He sustained a machine gun wound above the left knee.