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Description: | British NCO served as drummer with 2nd Bn Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in GB and on Western Front, 1911-1919
REEL 1 Background to recruitment and training as boy drummer with 2nd Bn Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at Maryhill Barracks, Glasgow, 1/1911-4/1912: question of influence of father's previous service record with unit; segregation of boy soldiers; role of boy soldiers; pay and requirement to pay for new uniform; food rations and supplementing rations; lack of hot water for washing dixies.
REEL 2 Continues: preparing barrack room for weekly inspection; organisation and pay of various categories of musicians; active service role of bandsmen as stretcher bearers, platoon buglers and company pipers; bugle calls learnt and sings examples; learning drums.
REEL 3 Continues: PT in gymnasium; taking educational certificates; sporting activities; absence of rifle training; barrack accommodation; coal fatigue; sharing barracks with another unit sharing security duties during railway strike, 1912. Aspects of period at Fort George, 4/1912-8/1914: accommodation in casements; walking out uniform and recreations.
REEL 4 Continues: company training on becoming full drummer; beating retreat; routine calls sounded on duty as orderly bugler; disciplinary system; routine calls sounded on duty as orderly bugler; nightly roll call; route marches accompanied by bands; music provided for officers' mess guest nights; role of orderly piper; compositions of Bandmaster Joseph Ricketts as 'Kenneth Alford' including origins of ' Colonel Bogey ' and ' The Great Little Army '; rifle training on becoming full drummer; arrival of German merchant navy POWs, 8/1914; mobilisation including question of status of drummers and reservists.
REEL 5 Continues: speed of mobilisation. Journey to Boulogne, France, 10/8/1914-12/8/1914: inadequate latrines and rations on train; crossing English Channel aboard Sea Hound.
REEL 6 Continues: school billets; initial role as lines of communications troops and erecting tents for British Expeditionary Force; move up to Le Cateau, 22/8/1914-25/8/1914. Recollections of Battle of Le Cateau, 26/8/1914: digging in with entrenching tool; retreat in face of mass German attacks; casualties; question of role as bugler; fetching ammunition; taking wounded soldier to regimental aid post; subsequent retreat; end of retreat and subsequent advance, 9/1914: effect on personal morale; reorganisation and move forward by train; posting as runner to B Coy. Aspects of duties as company runner, 1914-1915: story of close escape from bullet failing to penetrate equipment; system of taking messages unread in envelopes.
REEL 7 Continues: role taking messages from battalion headquarters to B Coy headquarters in front line in Armentieres sector, 1914-1915; question of selection of route when taking messages; story of carrying forward food parcel for officers; use of breastwork trenches; role helping to evacuate casualties during attack at Loos, 25/9/1915; burial party; formation of pipe band to play to troops during rest period and role in carrying forward rations. | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Ditcham, Charles Harry | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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