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[gordontaos]

Thanks so much! I knew that the uniform experts would figure it out.

Gordon

[BoldHighlander]

[BoldHighlander]

The King & Queen Passing Canadian Highlanders - Tuesday, November 12, 1918

[BoldHighlander]

Caption:
Lord Willingdon, Governor General of Canada, inspects the Calgary Highlanders in 1928.
Officer at left wears the same pattern sporran as the enlisted men - two black points on white, with a Tenth Battalion badge on the cantle.

At this point in time, the Regiment still boasted many veterans of the First World War, as evidenced by the decorations on the soldiers photographed here. A red sash is just visible on the sergeant second from right, and he also wears an older Canadian Pattern Service Dress Jacket with 7 button front and stand up collar. Compare to the man at right, with the 5 button pattern adopted from the British during the First World War.

All soldiers carry the standard weapon for this period, the Number 1 Mark III SMLE (Short Magazine, Lee Enfield). Officer at left doesn't appear to have a standard pattern Highland officers' sword; likely it is a sword he purchased or had handed down to him before joining the Highlanders.

[BoldHighlander]

Neil Sutherland (above right) was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1904 and learned piping from his father and Archie MacNeill, the uncle of Seamus MacNeill (famous founder of the College of Piping). Neil served with the 139th Boys Brigade Pipe Band before the family emigrated to Winnipeg in 1914. Sutherland instructed the 12th Signals Pipe Band, and served in the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada for eight years before moving to Saskatchewan and joining the Regina Police. He organized a Regina Boys Pipe Band and won awards at the Banff Games two years running. He was given permanent custody of the Beatty Trophy and asked to return to Banff as an adjudicator.

By the 1930s, Sutherland had accepted a position as the chief of police in Melfort, Saskatchewan. That the Calgary Highlanders have always cultivated talent from unique sources is evidenced by the story of Alex Smart. In his capacity as Chief of Police, Sutherland one day had to arrest a hobo - Smart - in a railyard. Upon finding he was a piper, the hobo resided at the Chief's house instead of a jail cell.

When the Second World War started, Smart joined the Calgary Highlanders but Sutherland moved to Manitoba to serve with the Winnipeg Police. When the Highlanders moved to Camp Shilo, in Manitoba, Smart persuaded Sutherland to come and visit, and in the end convinced Sutherland to join the band.

When the battalion left Shilo for overseas, Heather - a black Scots Terrier belonging to Sutherland - accompanied them, smuggled in the band's bass drum. Heather didn't return from overseas - being left with a good family in the UK. A set of Sutherland's bagpipes also did not return home; they were destroyed when a shell hit an ammunition truck in Normandy in which they were being carried. By that time, Sutherland had been Pipe Major for two years, having taken over from Stoker in 1942.

Sutherland did very well on the courses he took while in the UK; Willie Ross, the Chief of Piping for the British Army in fact wanted Sutherland to stay in England after the war. But Sutherland returned to the Winnipeg Police, where he was Pipe Major from 1945 to 1970. He suffered a heart attack in 1972 and died of a stroke in 1973.

[BoldHighlander]

[BoldHighlander]

Pipers and Drummers of the 51st Highland Division massed band at Aldershot circa 1939

[BoldHighlander]

Pipes and Drums lead the battalion in Royal Stewart tartan, route march, Calgary, 1940.

[BoldHighlander]

Men of the 7th Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders on the march (North Africa).



"In June 1942 the 51st Highland Division moved by train to a variety of ports, and embarked for an unknown destination. They moved around Africa leaving Durban on the 16th July and disembarked on 14th August 1942 at the entrance to the Suez Canal at Port Tewfik.

In late August the Division moved into the Nile delta through Khatatba. Here they took up positions to defend the western approaches to Cairo with 152 Brigade on the Mena-Cairo road, 153 Brigade south of Mena and 154 Brigade west of Cairo covering the Nile barrage. At this time the enemy were no more than 50 miles west in the area of El Alamein and to its south."

[JSFMACLJR]

My uncle, kilted at a party at my grandparents' farm, Goshen, Kentucky. The photo was taken in the mid 1950's when the Bolshoi Ballet ( I believe ) visited Kentucky, hence the presence among the party-goers of some dancers. My grandparents were early patrons of the Louisville Ballet.