Gaelic take on The

diers thought numbered.

But, as Private Kemp recalled in his memoir about the escape, the use of their native Gaelic confused the Germans and the Scots were able to convince their captors they were actually from the Soviet Union, which at the time was not yet at war with the Nazis.

He said: “In the morning we were brought before the German commander, whose first action was to point his revolver at each of us in turn.

“We took this to be a warning to speak the truth or take the consequences.

“A French officer, acting as an interpreter, asked us to state our nationality.

“I replied in Gaelic: ‘I do not know’.

their days were VILLAGERS in Ballachulish were updated about the exciting film project as another local historical project came to fruition.

The results of an ambitious three-year effort to capture memories of the historic slate quarry were put on display last week.

The huge quarry still dominates the landscape of the village but has not been active since the ’60s.

Quarrying for slate first began there in When he asked what country we were from, I then said: ‘Ardnamurchan’.”

Baffled by what they were hearing, the soldiers were joined by several other men in the room and questioned in seven other languages.

Their questions were met with more Gaelic responses and, once an atlas was produced, the soldiers pointed to Ukraine.

A few more officers came in to consult about what they were being told and, shortly after, the Scots were free to go. 1694 and production was at its peak in 1875, when 587 men were employed and around 26 million slates were sent all around the world.

The people behind the history project gathered stories from older people about their family members who worked in the quarry.

The results have been collated into an app which can be downloaded at ballachulish.org.uk.

Tired, hungry and penniless, the brave soldiers made their way through occupied France to Spain, where they discovered a British consulate and boarded a vessel under cover of darkness.

Once out of Spanish territorial waters, they transferred to a British warship and returned to Scotland.

News of the soldiers’ escape spread and German forces, angered by being made to look stupid by the Scots, were said to have sent any Gaelic speakers straight to labour camps as punishment.

All three soldiers have now passed away but Private Kemp’s niece, Susan Kemp, still lives in Ballachulish and said her family were proud of her uncle’s story.

“It’s always something I thought would make a great film,” she said. “I understand the film will be loosely based on my uncle’s story but I have only just heard about it.

“As children we were aware of it but, as was often the case with that generation, they didn’t make a big deal of it.

“They must have had nerves of steel.