Paying respects to a tragic uncle

Relatives of a Black Watch officer from Cupar who fell 100 years ago during the Battle of the Somme will pay tribute in France and Belgium today, as Michael Alexander reports.

In a quiet corner of a Commonwealth War Cemetery in France, retired Cupar solicitor Bill Pagan will be paying a respectful tribute this morning. The man in his thoughts will be his Black Watch officer uncle Lieutenant George Pagan, who died at the Somme 100 years ago today aged just 23.

After laying a wreath on George’s grave near Beaumont Hamel, Bill will then travel north with his wife Gilli and elder sister Judy Workman to a ceremony of remembrance at the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium, where a ceremony has taken place every evening since November 11 1929.

As the Pagan family lay their wreaths, with George’s niece Judy wearing his medals, it will be a particularly poignant time for reflection.

Here, they will try to imagine what must have been going through George’s mind – and the minds of his 7th Battalion Black Watch soldiers – as they waited for the whistle blast which would signal the start of what, for so many, would be their final action.

As a fifth generation senior partner in solicitors Pagan Osborne, it will also be a time for Bill, who retired in 2008, to consider the significant impact his uncle’s death had on the family firm.

“George Pagan volunteered for active service the day after war was declared in 1914,” explains Bill, who himself joined the Territorial Army Parachute Brigade in 1962 and rose to the rank of Colonel. He said the objective for the 7th Battalion that day was capturing the area around the River Ancre – specifically a small piece of rising ground overlooking the river, known as High Wood.

Any piece of ground which gave a view over the surrounding area, helped surveillance and provided firing positions, was of huge value.

It was here that Cupar-born Lieutenant Pagan found himself far from home, about to lead his platoon up the gentle slope towards the top of the hillock – and into the teeth of ferocious opposition from wellequipped German troops.

No diaries or final letter have survived but Bill has often imagined what he and his colleagues were thinking as they met their demise amid the chaos of mud and trenches.

“George’s death had lasting consequences for the Pagan family,” continues Bill.

“He was in the family tradition of studying law when his studies were interrupted by the war.

“In 1917, the family – and firm – suffered another grave loss when their cousin, George Osborne, already a partner in the firm, was killed fighting with the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry in Palestine.

“He was the last of the Osbornes in the firm.”

At home in Cupar, grandfather-of-six Bill and his wife do not have to look far to be reminded of those distant tragedies.

The Osborne and Pagan names sit one above the other on the Cupar War Memorial, which they can see from their window.

They also have the two men’s medals and dead man’s pennies, as well as their swords.

The Battle of the Somme, fought between July 1 and November 18 1916, cost around 420,000 casualties and the huge memorial at nearby Thiepval, like the Menin Gate, includes the names of thousands who died and whose remains never found, including many from The Black Watch.

Reflecting on the parallels between 1916 and 2016 Bill adds: “Remembrance unites our country.

“For the volunteers of 1914 and 1915 and the conscripts of 1916 to 1918, class was irrelevant. The risks were the same for all, regardless of background.

“It is both tragic and ironic that the equality of the battlefield has still failed to reach into Lloyd George’s promised ‘land fit for heroes’.”

Picture: Kris Miller. Bill Pagan and his wife Gilli at Cupar War Memorial next to the name of his uncle George Pagan and relation George Osborne. They are holding George Pagan’s medals and dead man’s penny.

George Pagan died at the Somme.