Derek Niven - Pride of the Hearts: The untold story of the men and women who made the Great War heroes of Heart of Midlothian

Published in 2021 by Corkerhill Press

Copyright Derek Niven 2021

Derek Niven has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

ISBN Paperback: 978-0-9935551-8-3

Ebook: 978-0-9935551-9-0

All rights reserved. No part of this publication, including the cover illustrations, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

All characters and events in this publication are based on factual, historical and genealogical research recorded in the public domain. Any errors in the research are purely accidental and entirely the ownership of the author and all research has been carried out in good faith.

A CIP catalogue copy of this book can be found at the British Library and at the National Library of Scotland.

Published with the help of Indie Authors World www.indieauthorsworld.com

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to acknowledge the valued assistance of Indie Authors World partners Sinclair and Kim Macleod in the publishing of this book. As always, I would like to thank Gillian Murphy for her expert editorial skills. A special thanks to my old railway colleagues John Steele and Robin Dale, who have both encouraged me to kick on with the idea of the Pride series.

Thanks to David Speed, the official Hearts historian, for his valued assistance, especially with research into the elusive Hearts hero Teddy McGuire, and also acknowledgment of the vast amount of background information on the Hearts players contained in the superb book McCraes Battalion Jack Alexander, 2003. My ASGRA colleague Margaret Hubble also provided excellent research into the West Lothian and Lancashire newspaper archives in connection with Teddy McGuire. Another ASGRA colleague, Bruce Bishop, a renowned expert in Elgin genealogy, helped with local research on Jamie Low.

Also to the late, great Sir Dirk Bogarde for the pseudonym and our shared alumni of Allan Glens School.

Finally, without the unswerving love, support, and patience of my wife Linda, this Pride series of books would never have seen the light of day.

The gaudy colouring with which she veiled her unhappiness
afforded as little real comfort as the gay uniform of the soldier when it is drawn
over his mortal wound.

Sir Walter Scott, the Heart of Midlothian

--

The Old Lie: Dulce et decorum est, Pro patria mori.

- Wilfred Owen, WW1 poet

Preface

In this fourth book in the Pride series, the reader may again think this latest publication is about the beautiful game of football. On the contrary, it is more about fickle fate, destiny and the unflinching bravery, camaraderie and human spirit in the desperate heat of battle.

This book researches the chance accumulation of fateful meetings and unions between men and women from the early 19th century, which culminated in the procreation of a remarkable group of young men, who wrote themselves into the annals of history over a century ago. It is about men and women who were born more than half a century before the formation of a new association football club in 1874 in the district of Gorgie, in the city of Edinburgh, which eventually grew into the world-renowned Heart of Midlothian Football Club.

When the research on this book began in late 2019, the world was unaware it was to face the global COVID-19 pandemic, with predictions of up to 3 or 4 million lives lost. However, many lives are being saved by the ultra-fast developments of coronavirus vaccines in just 9 months. It will be recalled that when the surviving Hearts players returned from the Great War, the world was already in the throes of the 191819 Spanish Flu pandemic, which killed an estimated 50 million globally.

Hearts is the oldest football club in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, founded by a group of friends from the Heart of Midlothian Quadrille Assembly, whose name was influenced by Walter Scotts novel The Heart of Midlothian, published in 1818. The modern club crest is based on the Heart of Midlothian cobbled mosaic on the citys Royal Mile outside St Giles Cathedral and the teams colours are predominantly maroon and white.

The early 19th century ancestors of the Hearts players were brought together by destiny, having no idea that one day their descendants would be immortalised. Not because they were intrinsically great Hearts footballers, although some were indeed exceptional players. It was because they enlisted en-masse during the Great War and so many of them paid the ultimate sacrifice for their King and country. For a more in-depth history of the Hearts players and their part in the 16th Battalion, the Royal Scots, the reader is recommended to read the enthralling and forensically researched book McCraes Battalion Jack Alexander, 2003.

The players and men of the Royal Scots are commemorated on the memorial clock-tower erected in the Haymarket Junction district of Edinburgh. It was unveiled on 9 April 1922, five years after the opening day of the dreadful Battle of Arras, where many men of the 16th Battalion fought and died. Secretary of State for Scotland, Robert Munro, told the attending crowd of 65,000 that the country owed a debt of gratitude to Hearts that could never be repaid.

The players are also commemorated on a memorial cairn at Contalmaison in the Departement de la Somme in northern France erected through funds raised by the Hearts Great War Committee. On 2 July 2016, on a soaking wet Saturday in France, exactly one hundred years after the second day of the dreadful Battle of the Somme, the author and his brother-inlaw, Alex Scott, cycled up to Contalmaison. They arrived just in time to greet the Hearts committee and fans entering the church, L'glise Saint-Lger, adjacent to the cairn for the centenary service of commemoration.

The previous day, on the 100th anniversary of the worst day in British military history, when over 57,000 British and Allied soldiers were killed or injured, the author and his brother-in-law had attempted to cycle up to Gordon Cemetery at Mametz, not far from Contalmaison, where Alexs great-grandfather Private Francis Hepburn, 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders is buried. Frank Hepburn fell at Mametz Wood on that same first day of the Battle of the Somme that decimated the Hearts players at nearby Contalmaison. The authors visit was soon after the terrorist bombings in Belgium and Paris in 2016 and there was heightened security.The two intrepid cyclists failed to get past a French gendarmerie roadblock and were turned back on the ironic premise that: