GREY’S NOTES
by Michael Grey.
November 11th, 2024
More and more I find, to my surprise, that things matter less to me. You know things that you can hold in your hand, or place on a shelf at home or collect, like, say, ginger bottles – or bagpipes. Now, I’m not saying I’ve advanced to become a blessed minimalist, like say an acolyte of that lover of everything nothing-on-the-shelf, Maria Kondo. No. Far from it – as anyone who has happened to drop by my home will know: walls were made for hanging stuff.
I am finding, though, there is a shift in how I view material possessions – beyond the necessities of life. As I know I have said before, we’re caretakers of these things we have, things we imagine we own.
Things we rent might be a better way of viewing possessions. My dad, Bill, was a dyed-in-the-wool lover of “things”. Especially quirky, eclectic – and old – things. He made no apologies about it. The family home where I was brought up was jammed with stuff he (and, to a lesser extent, my mother) collected.
My father loved snagging deals on old, interesting things, like, for instance, the 6-foot antique wooden hook that a rail guard would use to collect a mailbag from a rural railway station (without having the train to stop). Now that’s a treasure that adds real quality to a person’s life.
Bill knew the truth about stuff: that he was renting it. And didn’t the family know it. After he died it took a two and half day auction to dispose of said possessions. I tell you this to say I fear I am genetically predisposed to “things”. But I’m leaning, I think, to recovery.
And so from possessions and things I find myself facing one of life’s most mysterious of things, the coincidence. A thing that can’t be held. A thing of mystery and wonder. Writer William S Burroughs said that “in the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents; nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen.” True or not I generally believe that most things come to be for a reason. The ever quotable Einstein said, coincidences are God’s way of remaining anonymous.
Last April I received a message on the genealogy site, “ancestry” from, William MacLean from Glasgow. I didn’t know William but he is a keen genealogist and all-round good guy, evidently, as he took the trouble to point out that he had discovered there was an auction looming, one that was offering up a WWI medal that was awarded to a relation of mine.
The medal in question was listed on the auction site: British War Medal 1914-1920, without ribbon, of 7434 Private William MacLean of the Cameron Highlanders. Native of Inverness. Landed in France on 14th August 1914. Killed in action whilst serving with 1st Battalion, Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders in France on 22nd December 1914.
This Willam MacLean is my dad’s mother’s cousin, so my first cousin, twice removed. What would Bill do? There was no hesitation in my thinking: he’d buy the damned medal no matter what!
There was nothing for it: I put the UK-based auction in my calendar, set my alarm for 0500 h on the day and attended the auction. And the medal came to Canada.
But what of cousin, William MacLean. What was his story?
I hope against hope that the story of his short life held more joy than the cold facts show. William was born to my Great Grant Aunt Kate MacBain of Knockintorran, North Uist. He was born 15 September 1896 in “The Poorhouse, Inverness”, as his birth record shows, father Murdo a “plasterer’s assistant”. For a sense of life then and there, in this circa 1860-built Poorhouse, still standing today and renovated as flats the “inmate’s” diet “was basic consisting of porridge twice a day with buttermilk or treacle, soup with potatoes or bap (roll) and 1.5 ounces of meat three times a week”.
The 1901 and 1911 census show young William living in North Uist with his grandparents, John and Jessie MacBain (and half brother, Donald MacBain, who would also perish on the WWI battlefield). We might guess that William – and, with more sureness, brother Donald MacBain – were both illegitimate, a terrible old-fashioned word you’ll know used for children born of a mother unmarried.
The First World War started on 28 July, 1914. By the time of its end, 9 million soldiers would die and 23 million people would be wounded: unquestionably one of history’s most awful wars.
Private William MacLean of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders would have been one of the very first to sign-up. He wasn’t conscripted. William MacLean was 17 years old when he enlisted, just under two months shy of his eighteenth birthday. And three days before Christmas of the same year, he was strafed with bullets, gunned down, dead. Just 18 years old. One of the Great War’s dead millions. Imagine this.
And yet we have something called, “Battalion War Diaries”: hard-to-read firsthand accounts of war-time battles.
Consider the diary from the battle that took my cousin, William MacLean on 22 December 1914: “At 7am an advance was ordered by someone on the left of our line. A or B Companys advanced to within 25 yards of enemy’s trenches and all were either wounded, killed or taken prisoner. C & D did not advance but covered it with heavy fire. On the evening of the 22nd at 7pm ROYAL BERKS relieved our trenches and we moved into billets near corner of road 1/2 mile south of Port Fixe. Casualties”
| Killed | Wounded | Missing | |
| Officers | _ | 6 | 3 |
| Ranks | 6 | 64 | 132 |
William MacLean was one of those six soldiers, people, humans, killed in this late-December battle. 18 years old. Only three months in France on the Western Front he wouldn’t live to see his 18th Christmas.
So, on this November 11 I think, especially, of cousin, William MacLean of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders. Born “illegitimate” in an Inverness poorhouse, yet destined to die a hero on the Western Front of France 18 years later.
This story has more piping in it than has been said. The William MacLean who tipped me off at the start has deep Skye connections. The family’s holiday home on Skye is just down the road from the famed instrumentalist, Blair Douglas – and – what’s a story without a MacDonald? Dr Angus MacDonald was William’s Dad GP for many years.
And that aside. I have one of William MacLean’s medals. And he would receive three posthumously. I’m grateful this thing found me. I’lll own it, rent it, care for it and hold it.
I will think well of cousin William MacLean and his short heroic life. And I will do my best to ensure that this thing, this medal, finds its way into good hands should I go.
Lest we forget.
Mike Grey is the pipe major of 78th Fraser Highlanders since September 2023, and he teaches, judges, writes and publishes bagpipe music. His Grey’s Notes series ran in Piping Today magazine for ten years. His Grey’s Notes book is available here.