Largie Castle, A Rifled Nest Day 44

As with the plumage of a robin, cock pheasant, or drake, colour plays an important role in an army regiment, particularly a Highland one

Some skills were put to the test in his final year in Wiltshire. In June 1937, to mark the new King’s birthday, 1st Battalion, as part of 3 Division, paraded on Salisbury Plain. Its open ground was ideal for carrying out experiments in mechanising the infantry. The event, reviewed by General Sir John T. Burnett-Stuart, Colonel-in-Chief, was the division’s first large parade with mechanised transport and many feared it would be a disaster; some vehicles had just been issued and were temperamental, while others were ready for the scrapheap.

But the parade went off without a hitch and the Colonel sang the troops’ praises: “The fact there were no breakdowns, either during rehearsal or on parade, speaks for itself,” he applauded. Burnett-Stuart was one of the few pre-war generals to favour mechanised tactics.

There were less strenuous duties, at times convivial, although the 23-year-old lieutenant had to be on his best behaviour when he was invited by the Colonel of the regiment, Major-General Sir Alexander Wilson, to attend the Argylls’ annual dinner in July, 1936 at London’s Naval and Military Club.

Dignity

The pukka establishment still exists but has moved to St James’s Square. Founded in the 1860s for officers of the army and navy, the Naval and Military Club – or “The In & Out” – is, as its website photograph indicates, hoary and conservative.

One public room shows a mortar on a desk, a ship’s cannon by the fireside, and a portrait hanging on the wall of a bereted general. As a home-from-home for worthies from the shires, it has a strict dress code and expects its members ‘to dress in a manner consistent with the character, dignity and standing of the club’.

There was no danger of anyone at the majorgeneral’s table slipping up in his attire. Each officer, high-ranking or low, wore dress uniform (kilts and white tie). If Angus was unacquainted with his dining companions, he would soon know them.

Ian Stewart, his boss at the Stirling depot, was present, so was Hector Greenfield, who would be his commanding officer in India and John W. Tweedie (adjutant of the 2nd battalion from December, 1936). What the officers ate, drank, and discussed is unknown.

Much easier to guess was what was on the mind of the ageing Major-General Wilson. The 88-year-old Princess Louise, their Colonel-in-Chief, had just written him a friendly letter congratulating her regiment on being selected for conversion into a machine-gun unit. At that time, neither the princess, Wilson, nor the officers and men, were aware that this arrangement would cause them many headaches.

On May 12 1937, three Argylls officers and 50 other ranks travelled to London to perform ceremonial duties at George VI’s coronation. I doubt if Angus pushed hard to attend, although if anyone was entitled, it was he, as Archbishop Lang, who had baptised my uncle as a baby, was officiating.

The coronation earned a mention in the regimental magazine when the editor warned that ‘the handsomest men in the battalion have already been chosen – there are no vacancies left’. Joking apart, smartness and good looks mattered.

Impression

A soldier’s turn-out was commented upon by writers and journalists, as in La Stampa after the Argylls’ pipe band visited Italy. A young soldier was expected to be proud of his appearance. As with the plumage of a robin, cock pheasant, or drake, colour plays an important role in an army regiment, particularly a Highland one.

Setting aside combat khaki, it’s a soldier’s dress uniform that wins hearts and sends shivers down the spine, and it should create as much of an impression as the feathered display of any farmyard rooster.

The culmination in military pride and peacock display was the Tidworth tattoo. Battalions took the event seriously, and from July to September training was interrupted so that officers and men could attend rehearsals.

Although Angus’s stay at the garrison coincided with three consecutive tattoos, it is unlikely he performed in any. In 1935 the Argylls performed a drill display; the following year, two officers and 100 other ranks represented the battle of Falkirk of 1298.

The Argylls were accompanied by two bands: the Pipes and Drums of 1st Battalion and the regimental band which, in common with regimental bands throughout Britain, consisted mainly of wind instruments.

Established in 1920, the annual Tidworth Tattoo was performed in early August on the polo ground in front of Tedworth House. It drew a mass of spectators, who travelled from as far afield as London, Birmingham and Wales.

The grandstand had a seating capacity of 30,000. Local firms constructed the scenery, and the garrison theatre became a fitting room for 2,000 performers. Theatrical costumiers supplied the costumes and a Wiltshire laundry was put on standby each evening if it rained. Local boys flogged chocolate sent from the manufacturers by special delivery; NAAFI canteens sold tea, cake and sandwiches.

Troops performed to military music before an elaborate backdrop. One year the capture of Quebec was enacted. Other acts involved a motorbike dispatch rider leaping over a gap in a broken ‘war-time’ bridge.

The Tattoo may well have attracted Angus’s mother and siblings. A graduate in Forestry from Oxford University, Jock was working for the Forestry Commission which, in the 1930s, was acquiring land to plant trees, so that the country’s timber reserve could be replenished after its depletion during the First World War.

Successful

Older sister Douna and her husband, Henry Rogers, with their infant daughter, Shian, were about to leave their parish in London’s East End, where Henry had been a clergyman, and move to Gordonstoun.

The new school, established by Kurt Hahn, an early refugee from Nazi Germany, was looking for schoolmasters and Henry was a successful applicant. Angus’s younger brother, Simon, had followed him to Magdalen College, Oxford, and 16-year-old Esther Mary was a pupil at Downe House.

A more likely occasion for a family reunion was Christmas 1936 (Angus’s last in the UK) when he gave my mother a book, Rudyard Kipling’s The Maltese Cat. For Angus, it was an obvious choice as it was about polo-playing.

Fresh from the press, publisher Macmillan had hired Lionel Edwards, a painter of horses, to illustrate the narrative. Since Esther Mary was a horse lover, the book was a suitable gift. Or was it?

More tomorrow

© 2017 Mary C Gladstone, all rights reserved, courtesy of the author and Firefallmedia; available in hardcover and paperback online and from all booksellers.

By Mary Gladstone