BLACK WATCH

Mark Smith delves into the recent history of the famous regiment

THE final advance. The company commander Major Lindsay Macduff reads Kipling’s poem If: “Keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.” Prince Charles writes a letter to say the men of the battalion are in his prayers. And on the day itself, Lieutenant William Colquhoun sits in the turret of his tank and plays his bagpipes. The soldiers have been told to expect an ambush, but as they make the final approach on April 3, 2003, thousands of people come out of their houses, waving and shouting messages of welcome. The people of Basra are pleased to see the Black Watch.

It is not the reaction Scotland’s most famous regiment has always received though. In 1963, President John F Kennedy invited the pipes and drums of the Black Watch to play at the White House, but during the 1971 goodwill tour of the US, the soldiers of the Black Watch were heckled and booed. An Irish-American organisation also issued a statement condemning the regiment’s visit in 2006. “The record of the Black Watch in Ireland is one of bloody enforcement of British military rule,” it said. “The history of the Black Watch includes decoration for combat against American citizens during the Revolution for United States independence.”

This is what the history of the Black Watch is like. It is celebrated as the oldest Highland regiment (the name is derived from the dark colour of its tartan), it has fought in almost every major conflict of the last 300 years and it is beloved by many (but not all) of the soldiers who have served with it. But the history of the regiment – of any regiment – is made up not just of glories but also defeats and the Black Watch story is much more complicated than the famous red hackle, the flourish of red feathers its soldiers wear in their bonnets.

There are darker, more troubling episodes; the men who have served with it have not always behaved as they should; and most of us recall how the story ended – in 2006, when the Black Watch was merged with the remaining Scottish regiments into the Royal Regiment of Scotland. Depending on your point of view, that decision was an acknowledgement that cuts had to be made or a victory for the spineless pen-pushers – either way, it was a bitter and sad exit.

For several years, historian Victoria Schofield has been investigating the

The signature red hackle on the bonnets of Black Watch soldiers is made of feathers