THE BLACK WATCH (The Royal Highland Regiment) was one of the finest fighting forces in the world. It engaged in virtually every worldwide conflict of the last three centuries. Named after the dark tartan of the soldiers' kilts, its unique formation - raised from loyal Scottish clans in the wake of the 1715 Jacobite rebellion - made it the oldest Highland regiment.

Combining the proud history and tradition of an organization that had soldiered for over 250 years, it was also the UK's most decorated regiment, with 14 Victoria Crosses to its credit.

Immediately after its action in the Korean War The Black Watch (RHR) was deployed to Kenya to help suppress the Mau-Mau rebellion in 1953. Five years later it was involved in a similar role in Cyprus against EOKA terrorists.

It left the Island only after the UK granted Cyprus independence in 1960, but the regiment returned six years later to serve in the United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) to 'keep the peace' between the majority Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriot minority.

It is ironic that The Black Watch arrived in Cyprus as an occupying force when Britain took over the Island from Ottoman rule in July 1878 and was present when Britain's last governor left. Sir Hugh Foot, still resplendent in plumed hat and gold braid, boarded HMS Chichester, a Royal navy frigate, and sailed over the horizon on 16 August 1960 as the Band of The Black Watch played an especially composed bagpipe lament entitled Sir Hugh's Farewell.

CHRISTOPHER ROSE today is a British businessman based in France and working with a group of independent French entrepreneurs opening up new markets. At the age of 18, rather than serving as a National Service soldier, he volunteered to join The Black Watch for three years, after attending Aberdour Prep School and Framlingham College, Suffolk. He served with his regiment in Cyprus from 1958 to 1960.

These are his thoughts about those days related to DAVID CARTER…

THE BLACK WATCH was a very old regiment. Created in 1739, its history began in 1725 when independent companies were formed to patrol the rebellious highlands. It served all over the world and had suffered more than 8,000 killed in the First World War. The weight of history that the regiment bore would now be passed on to the shoulders of its latest recruits.

ONE squad was made up of regulars, the other of National Service men. They came from all walks of life but were all very young, mostly about 18 or 19. Many were married. They married very young in Scotland in those days. It was the only way a boy and girl could get to be together and live apart from their family.

Each squad was assigned its own barrack room: one of National Service men, the other of regulars. I was placed with 'the regulars' but was the only three-year man there.

The period of basic training would last three months, with one half-day off in the middle. Sundays, in theory, were free, but were in fact needed to catch up on all that had not been done during the week.

Living together in a barrack room was no problem for me after spending a number of years in a school dormitory. For those who had never been away from home, it was a little difficult.

One of the advantages of boarding school was you learnt to live with other boys or men. The food was as ever rotten, but then it had always been so at school. The drill was not hard, as I had already been drilling for many years and I felt comfortable with the firearms, which were the same as I had been using in the cadets for four years.

As for the marching, jogging and PT, they posed no particular problems as I was in superb physical condition. That could not be said of everybody but, in general, the nation's young were in very good shape. Money was still very short and no children had ever had an excess of pocket money to spend on fattening foods, even if they were lucky enough to get any.

All in all, army life was not too bad.

Everybody was treated exactly the same, no matter their education or origins. That is, every raw recruit was treated as an absolute idiot who knew nothing about anything. This meant that they could only get better and the NCOs would take the credit for changing a bunch of useless, shapeless and gormless civilians into a finely drilled killing machine.

There was no bullying. The NCOs didn't need to and, in any case, the regiment wouldn't tolerate it. I also had the feeling that we – the recruits - wouldn't tolerate it either. Certainly I had no spare energy to fight anyone else. The NCOs were not bad though and I can't remember any ill feeling.

Fatigue was our greatest problem. Tiredness. All my young life I had enjoyed a good night's sleep. Like all Great Britain's children in those days, I had gone to bed early.

In the army, it was different: we stayed awake until two o'clock in the morning, polishing our boots and brass buckles. Bull, bull and more bull. Spit and polish. Elbow grease. I thought I had been a very smart cadet on our school's weekly parade, but here… we were inspected every morning. Early.

Our new equipment had to acquire an old worn-look. Overnight. Blancoing, ironing, pressing. Sewing. Every soldier learnt what a housewife really was. Darning socks. The bottoms of the spare boots polished. The studs on the soles polished. How to repair spats, how to wear puttees. How to press a kilt. How to wear a blue bonnet and how to scrub a T O S. How to sweep the barrack floor and clean the widows. To shave properly every morning and again in the evening if one was on guard duty.

If we had a guard duty at night, we still had to parade in the morning. If there was a night training exercise, we still trained the next day.

There may not have been bullying, but there was enormous psychological pressure. And only tea to drink to give us the strength to carry on. Tea with milk and sugar already mixed together. That was tough for a coffee-drinking man, like myself, who utterly loathed cha!

THE 1ST Battalion left Edinburgh by train one evening, in October 1958. We wore drill order, which consisted of kilt and T O S etc. We always traveled in kilts in those days.

It's such a long time ago that I forget at which port we embarked to sail overseas. It was probably Portsmouth. It was certainly in the south of England.

The next 12 days or so were spent on a very old, slow moving troopship to get to Cyprus.

There were short stops at Gibraltar and Malta, where we were allowed ashore. We spent most of the day in bars, drinking. No tourist type sightseeing for us, all young soldiers now. A few days later, on board ship, the whole battalion was paraded for inspection to see that we had not picked up any social diseases.

Our journey through the Med was not unpleasant. Not much to do. A lot of lying around being lazy. Rather overcrowded living quarters. The trick was to get up and wash and shave before everyone else.

When we arrived off Limassol, we disembarked onto lighters, which took us ashore.

Dressed in drill order, kilt and TOS, we were greeted by a pipe band of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. We were put on board buses of all things and taken to our camp at Polis, which was in the North West corner of the island.

Camp Xeros near Lefka, next to the American-owned copper mine.
The nearby sea was turned orange and yellow for a hundred yards from the mining activities.

IMMEDIATELY on arrival at our camp, as a signaler, I found myself on duty the following morning, my first whole day in Cyprus. A message came in from brigade to send in a sitrep. I'd never heard the term before and I'd experience a lot of confusion over radio procedures in the days that followed. At night radio transmission was poor to nonexistent.

On night duty I would take a blanket along and probably nod off most of the time. The officers or sergeants on duty never seemed to bother us. Our main inter-company radio was the Mark 19 set. It had seen better days with the Eighth Army in North Africa during World War II. If all else failed, a hefty boot in its side often set it to rights.

The Regiment's rifle companies possibly fared better. They switched from the .303 to the Belgian FN on our arrival, but HQ Company still kept its old and trusty Lee Enfields. It was a lovely rifle, which I always remember with nostalgia. The new FNs could be dangerous to the bearer. One of our privates lost his eye on parade while unfixing bayonets with the new rifle.

That winter, the camp was thick with mud and we lived in eight-man tents. Winter dress was very relaxed and there was virtually no 'bull'. No parades either. No parade ground.

Somewhere in the camp was a primitive shower, which I might have visited once or twice. We washed and shaved out of mess tins. I bought a small burner to heat my water. When I'd finished, the same water was passed around the tent's occupants. Then I ate out of the same tin.

The field latrines took some getting used to. One officer dropped his revolver down one and had to fish it out himself.

Facilities were crude and equipment in short supply. Our battalion was equipped with just two armored vehicles, a Ferret and a Dingo.

In the Troodos Mountains in February 1959 during Operation Mare’s Nest. The author is on the left.

BECAUSE the regiment had a long association with India, we showed no surprise, when our caterers from the Empire joined us. One Mr. Ghulam Nabi, a very enterprising gentleman, who set up shop soon after our arrival in Cyprus, ran the business. At reveille, his employees did the rounds of our tents, serving buns and tea, for a small price. This meant we didn't have to go off to breakfast.

Later, operating in the hills, we would sometimes find ourselves dying of thirst and forbidden to drink from our water bottle. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere would appear one of Mr. Nabi's cha wallahs, with a tea urn on his back. Gunga Din be praised!

If there were an alert at night, a signaler would go out with the emergency patrol. There was always a standby company in camp. Others were posted to outlying stations.

Patrols would have a Bren-gunner in the open turret of a three-quarter-ton truck. He wore a flak jacket. Nobody else did. In any case, none had been issued. We did have helmets, however, but they were never worn.

New Years Eve 1958 or Hogmanay was an occasion for most people to get drunk, although the standby company was kept sober. The drivers and signalers, however, were not billeted with them and it is doubtful if they could have navigated the camp gates.

In fact, one of our signalers was delivered to camp on New Year's Day morning, carried on a stretcher from an outlying post, rigor mortis not quite having set in. The regimental band played airs suitable for the occasion.

TO KEEP in touch with news from the outside world, I had bought a portable radio. Everyone else was a National Service conscript and therefore broke. I know my pay then was about £3 a week. By the time I completed my three years it had risen to just over £5.

We were paid in cash every Friday, although when we were on operations or out of camp, our wages were held over. Still, cigarettes and razor blades were handed out free. Sometimes, in the hills, we even received a rum ration.

The National Servicemen were paid about 30 shillings a week, with a 10 shilling-marriage allowance. And there were many with wives. They married young in those days at 18 or 19.

As we worked around the clock, we often had to catch up on rest, falling asleep during the day to the sweet lullabies of the regimental band and the Pipes and Drums practicing their instruments. We had two bands at that time and they were 'housed' in the next tent lines.

THERE was to be an operation in the Troodos Mountains. Mare's Nest it was called. The first assault was to be sent in by helicopter. A new experience for us.

Suddenly we were ordered to put on full kit with rifles and to report for training at our airstrip, usually used by light spotter aircraft that delivered our mail, occasionally.

The start of a typical helicopter operation

This day, a helicopter arrived. We boarded, were taken for a spin, a rope was thrown out and we were ordered to climb down. Only one broken leg. We were then fully trained.

On the actual day of the operation, the troop-carrying helicopters were sent in. The plan stated they were to be followed the next morning by lorry-borne infantry, but it was too windy for our soldiers to land, except for one luckless fellow who had been the first to descend, without his rifle. He spent the night alone on the targeted mountain before being relieved the next morning.

I was with the group that went by road, traveling in the signals' van, which broke down en route, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. A corporal and I had the pleasure of spending a night guarding the stricken vehicle. Very lonely. I was only 19 at the time.

Later I spent a few days at base camp. Very small. But I had scrounged some coffee and so I was able to brew my own. After detestable tea, this was a godsend. I had always found it very difficult to function in a nation of tea drinkers.

Food? It seemed to consist of mutton scotch-style. There were C rations or was it K? I can never remember which were British and which were American. Russian salad, corned beef, bars of chocolate. All very good.

I remember I needed a bath. There was a mountain stream 100 yards from camp so I went off and swam around in this freezing water for a while. I must have been tough in those days, because I also never wore socks, probably because our sergeant had told me during training to either darn them or not wear any. Being cussedly stubborn, I'd chosen the latter course. What's more, our highland hose didn't have any feet on them, so it seemed logical.

ARRIVING back in camp, trouble. I realized I'd left my rifle by the stream. Panic. Only recently, a chap in our platoon had dropped a single round of .303 ammunition after an operation and not noticed while on getting off his truck. He was put on a charge and lost 30 days pay. Fortunately, I was able to retrieve my weapon before it became a major issue.

Another soldier in a rifle company had lost a bayonet scabbard, not the bayonet, and there was a court of inquiry. When a Bren gun had been lost by a regiment (whose name I won't reveal) two battalions were turned out to search for it.

A neighboring regiment had a base camp next to ours, which was in a small vale high up in the Troodos Mountains. A corporal put his hand into his tent to pick up his Sterling sub-machine gun. The trigger caught in a guy rope and he shot himself through the chest. Our medical officer tried to save him but he died later on 7 January.

(Editor’s note: The dead soldier was Cpl J Rochford of the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers. Despite the efforts of the medical staff at the British Military Hospital, Nicosia, did not recover from his wound. His body was returned to the UK for burial)

The Signals platoon on a training exercise in the Troodos Mountains in Spring 1959. The author, smoking a pipe, stands in the center of the group.

Guarding the rugged mountain areas and searching for EOKA terrorists led to re-supply challenges.

‘A’ company overcame them by taking charge of a team of donkeys that successfully negotiated the dangerous terrain with their loads destined for the troops in their isolated outposts. Besides the donkey trains, light aircraft flew over and dropped off what was needed. This was at a time when I joined D Company, from which I was deployed at an isolated outpost.

A corporal, two privates and I manned our location, as the radio operator. We were all alone and expected to use our initiative without interference from on high. The ideal place to soldier in. We had a small Australian radio, which fitted onto a belt. It did not provide voice technology and so I spent a lot of my time there communicating in Morse code with our HQ.

One night, there was a terrible storm. The wind howled through the mountains, the thunder crashed like cannon and lightning flashed. We only had two small two-man tents. I can remember being on guard duty after midnight. Sitting under a tree, bayonet fixed, a round in the chamber of my rifle, its safety catch off, I'd have shot anything that appeared. Who had ever heard of precautions to take during a storm?

Sometime later, two privates from a rifle company annoyed the CO. Whatever the cause, it had taken place in our main battalion base, but they were brought up in front of the colonel somewhere in the mud of the Troodos. There they had to appear in full review order, kilt, white spats and sporran and all. Both received 14 days for their sins.

In the spring we moved to Xeros to relieve the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. I was in the advance party. It was always agreeable to be detached from the regiment.

At Xeros I noticed a small group of soldiers wearing civilian clothes. They were part of a Royal Signals troop. They were unaware of what or who was heading in their direction, determined to change their life-style.

When the battalion arrived, Mr. Patterson, our RSM, a giant of a man, saw the signalers, took a deep breath and roared. It was loud enough to make the gods in their heaven tremble to the sound. From that moment, the order was clear: there would to be no civilian clothes worn in his camp.

Christopher Rose (facing camera center) with friends at a beachside café at Xeros. In 2008, the same café often hosted UNFICYP troops based in this Turkish Cypriot-controlled area. Below is how the Xeros beach looks today. The café can be seen in the distance on the left side of the rusting tug.

We were still living in tents, but now we had a parade ground and donned khaki drill to look smart again. Our nearest village was Lefka, whose population was Turkish. We were occasionally allowed to visit, providing we wore our trews and blue bonnets. Here we sampled the local beer (quite awful) and local wine (even worse), but both were very cheap and affordable to the ill-paid National Service soldiers.

We had been in Cyprus now for six months without a real break from soldiering and it was decided by the powers-that-be to give us some rest and relaxation in Nicosia, the Island's capital, one company at a time. After the first visit by the Black Watch, the commander of the Royal Military Police declared solemnly that in his entire military career, he had never witnessed so damage inflicted by a single company of soldiers. Well, the Black Watch did have a reputation to maintain.

BY early summer 1959, some semblance of calm had descended on the Island with the agreements signed in London between the foreign ministers of Britain, Turkey, Greece and Cypriot representatives to grant Cyprus independence, but not enosis – union with Greece, the demand made by the terrorist leadership of EOKA.

I was detached to a post in the Greek Cypriot town of Morphou. I can't remember much about that period, as the politics of the situation did not really concern me. But I did see the enthusiasm with which the Greeks celebrated. They regularly paraded past our post, flying the blue and white flag of mainland Greece.

This was the scene outside Christopher Rose’s post in Morphou/Guzelyurt in early 1959. Today the town is part of Turkish-controlled North Cyprus.

Many years later, after my mother died, we were clearing her things, when I found my two books about Cyprus and its political climate there at the time I served. The first was Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell and the second W Byford Jones' account of Grivas and the story of EOKA. Although I read these not long after the events concerned, I had read them with interest.

The books brought back to mind the interpreter we had during our stay in Polis. He had been a student of Greek at Glasgow University and largely sympathized with the political aspirations of the Greek Cypriot population.

By contrast, we of the Black Watch were very gung-ho and didn't really give a damn for their sensitivities. Our army had suffered a lot at the hands of the terrorists and our job was to put an end to that.

There had also been attacks on British women and children. For instance, the wives of two Royal Artillery sergeants had been callously shot down by EOKA while shopping in Famagusta the previous October. One of the wives died and the other barely survived. (Editor’s note: This was the murder of Catherine Cutliffe on 3 October 1958 in Hermes Street.)

As a consequence, the Royal Ulster Rifles and some other units vented their spleen on the Greek Cypriot population in the town.

Two years earlier, the HLI had behaved in a similar fashion after a friendly soccer match at Lefkoniko. Soldiers were drinking at the village fountain when a remote-controlled bomb exploded killing three and seriously wounding five others. (Editor's Note: 'The people of Lefkoniko had reason to be thankful that it was British troops with whom they had to deal on that day,' said the Governor, Field Marshal Sir John Harding.)

Perhaps our behavior was a bit over the top, sometimes. Even aggressive. Whenever we searched a church (a favorite EOKA hiding place for weapons), for example, our Bren gunner placed his weapon on the pulpit to cover the worshippers. And when we were on patrol, we never thought twice about helping ourselves to whatever fruit we found in a farmer's field.

One night we found ourselves stranded in a field and slept there. In the morning we discovered we were in the middle of a watermelon field, so that took care of breakfast. I also remember taking my rifle and going through orange groves, plucking fruit as the mood took me.

Because we were not much kinder to the local wildlife, an order went out to the motor platoon to try to stop driving over so many animals. I think there was a competition amongst the drivers to see who had the highest kill rate in a month.

The foothills of the Troodos

We were quite friendly with the Turks whom we considered stout fellows, although one of them accidentally discharged his shotgun into the stomach of one of our chaps. As it happens, accidents were far more common than battle casualties.

Young Turkish Cypriots of NW Cyprus with members of The Black Watch Signals platoon in 1958.

AS life improved, we began our working day in camp at 05.00 and finished at lunchtime. Leave, too, was granted. I spent a month in Turkey and the Aegean. The Turks were very friendly, the Greeks lukewarm.

The Black Watch recreational beach at Morphou Bay.

As the situation became more peaceful the battalion created its own beach where one could stay overnight, get moderately drunk and spent the day swimming and sun bathing. No swimsuits or anything. No women either.

Come to think it, in my time in the Island, apart from never seeing any tanks, I can't recollect ever seeing a female soldier either. In those days, weren't they called WRACs or something? I was there 18 months and in all that time never spoke to one female. In Cyprus, there was no fraternizing with the women of the local population. None at all.

However, when I was on leave I did fall madly in love with a beautiful Armenian in Istanbul, but she was chaperoned and I could never be alone with her. In Khios, in the Aegean, I found a Greek girl from Egypt. She, too, was accompanied and never left alone for a moment. Probably for the better.

Towards the end of 1959 the battalion moved down to the new British enclave of Dhekelia in the south east of the island. Here there were brand new barracks – and all the regimental bull that went with them. The old colonel and RSM had moved on to other postings, the troubles were over and it was more or less a return to routine garrison life.

Dhekelia enclave, Early 1960, forced march training for HQ Company, Pipes & Drums and Signals in the Dhekelia Base area.

There was a riding school nearby, which meant I could take up one of my passions again. One particular day a group of us started a rather wild gallop. My horse pulled ahead, which was fine by me, until I saw a very wide ditch before me and decided it was too big to jump and so I tried to pull the horse up, but the horse refused. What the heck, I decided we'd have to jump the obstacle.

Then, at the last second, my mount saw what was ahead, dug his hoofs in and shuddered to a sudden halt, which resulted in me flying over his head. I cleared the ditch, did a parachute roll on the other side and came up on my feet without a broken neck. I tried to remount, but the horse was nervous and my legs rather unsteady.

The battalion's second-in-command, an old India army man, rode up. 'That damn fool can't mount,' he shouted, declaring the obvious. My reply, whatever it was, must not have satisfied, because a private I remained.

Corporal Ian Holden and I became good friends. His claim to fame was being sent down from Saint Andrew's University, because he'd been too brilliant to bother to study. He became a corporal, a rank denied me as I was too independent-minded to conform.

Holden and I often went out together, which was frowned on. To add to our difficulties, we always used first names with each other. Such was the climate of the time that our behavior was deemed absolutely detrimental to the maintenance of good conduct and military order.

There is a most delightful passage about that in Robert Graves' Goodbye to all that. His book, of course, refers to The Royal Welsh Fusiliers in the First World War.

Dhekelia, Spring 1959. A Guard of Honour for Lord Mountbatten

BEFORE The Black Watch left Cyprus, Lord Mountbatten came by and a Guard of Honour in full dress turned out for him.

As I am typing this I notice, my computer queries the spelling of honour. I once wrote to The Times about its spelling of that word. The editors had used the American form of Honor Guard. In their reply, they said it was all the same nowadays. I disagree.

In 1960 I went back to the depot in Perth Scotland to be demobbed. Again a slow trip by sea. Perhaps the same ship. I kept a bottle of whisky in my bunk to help pass the time. When it was finished I put a note in it and threw it overboard. Some months later a girl wrote to me in the Bahamas which was then my home but I never answered. Life had moved on.

I was part of the old army. I was a three-year volunteer. More than half the battalion was made up of National Service men. We still had church parades. We were woken up on the 15th of each month by the Pipes and Drums playing The Crimean Long Reveille.

Drum Major Dear was one of the finest men I knew, along with RSM Patterson and our CSM, whom I only remember by the name 'Gobby', but he had won an MM in Normandy. I also remember with affection Captain McMicking, my platoon officer who went on to lead the battalion. He was always as decent to me as I was a trial for him.

Now looking back after half a century, one gets nostalgic for the past, but the past is no longer there. Old friends have died. The Black Watch - which was raised in 1739 and could trace its roots back to 1725 - has disappeared. The highland regiments, all the Scottish regiments for that matter, have been amalgamated out of existence. So have the old Irish, Welsh and English regiments. They only exist in history books and our memories.

(Editor's Postscript: One Black Watch soldier remains in Cyprus. His name is inscribed on a sarcophagus that contains his body and rests in the old British Cemetery in Kyrenia/Girne in the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). The inscription reads:
No 141 Sergeant Samuel McGaw VC
42nd Royal Highlanders, The Black Watch
Died on the line of march to Camp Chiflik Pasha
Of heat apoplexy 22nd July 1878 Aged 40 years.

In 1878 The Black Watch was based in Malta. The establishment of the regiment was increased to 1,103 of all ranks and ordered to prepare for a new posting. On 18 July, the 42nd, along with half a Battalion of the 101st Regiment, embarked on board HMS Himalaya, which also conveyed General Sir Garnet Wolseley. They formed part of the Expeditionary Force to occupy the island of Cyprus. The force, consisting of 10,000 men, including an Indian Contingent, arrived at Larnaca on the 22nd.

Sir Garnet Wolseley carried a firman or directive from Lord Beaconsfield and Sultan Abdul The Damned of the Sublime Porte, by which the island passed from Turkish to control.

The regiment disembarked the next day and began the march to Chifflick Pasha Camp, about 7 miles away and encamped, but on arriving there, news was received of the sudden death of Sergeant McGaw, VC, who had accompanied an advance detachment the previous day.

Chifflick Pasha camp was not a healthy part of Cyprus and, less than a month later, on 17 August, the regiment moved to Kyrenia, while two companies went on to Paphos.

Sir Garnet Wolseley raises the first Union flag in central Nicosia in front of a parade of The Black Watch and a cheering audience of Turkish Cypriots on 22 July 1878. Sgt McGaw, VC, one of the regiment's legendary heroes, died the same day.

Sgt McGaw was first buried close to where he died and a wooden cross erected to mark the spot. His burial service was conducted by his Commanding Officer, Colonel Wauchope, as the Regimental Chaplain was not available to conduct the service.

A sketch of the Sgt McGaw’s original burial spot near Larnaca.:

Three years later, the Commissioner of Kyrenia, Colonel Scott Stevenson formerly of the Black Watch, learned that the Greek farmer who owned the land on which Sergeant McGaw was buried, had removed the wooden marker and ploughed the land over the grave. Stevenson traced the site, exhumed the remains and placed them in a coffin and it to Kyrenia.

There, covered with a Union Flag and carried by six Turkish Zaptiehs, McGaw was reburied in the English Cemetery. According to the records of the regiment, his sarcophagus in Kyrenia is one 'of Byzantine splendor'.

But McGaw's death was only the first of many of the Highland Regiment, which was 'decimated not from military action, but malaria'. What happened led the British to launch a campaign to kill the island's mosquitoes. The regiment was reduced to an establishment of 693 of all ranks, before they left Cyprus.

While stationed in Kyrenia, The Black Watch had the duty of guarding more than 200 Turkish convicts, who were confined in Kyrenia castle.

After McGaw's funeral in Kyrenia, Mrs. Scott Stevenson decorated the grave with wreaths of passion flowers and jasmine.

The only known photograph of Sgt Samuel McGaw in his full highland dress uniform.

SERGEANT Samuel McGaw was born in 1837 in Kirkmichael Village, Ayrshire, the eldest son of William McGaw and his wife Sarah Thomson. Samuel was one of a family of five sons, one of whom died in infancy and three sisters all born in Kirkmichael Village. Sometime after 1853 the family moved to Kilmarnock where the father was employed as a laborer in the Railway Works. At the age of 20, he enlisted in the 42nd Royal Highlanders on 15 August 1857. The title of 'Black Watch' was not added until 1861.

By then McGaw had served in India, seen action many times and been promoted and demoted on several occasions. Not that any of this deterred him from re-enlisting on 20 February 1867, while stationed in Peshawar, as his initial engagement was about to end.

After short return to Britain, during which he married a Scottish widow, in early December 1873, McGaw was sent with his regiment to Africa's Gold Coast to reinforce British troops fighting in the Ashanti War.

During its advance inland, there were small difficult actions were fought many small but difficult battles. It was at Amoaful that McGaw, despite severe wounds. Led his section through dense thorny bush and engaged the enemy several times until they were defeated. For his conduct, he was awarded the Victoria Cross, one of four given during the Ashanti Campaign. McGaw was 36. The following doggerel was written for him:

The rain may rain and the snaw may snaw
The wind may blaw and the cock may craw
But ye canna frichten Jock M'Gaw
He's the stoutest man in the Forty-Twa.
The Ashantees,
When they saw the shanks of Jock McGaw
They turned about and fled awa’

Queen Victoria, presented Osborne Castle Sergeant McGraw's medal to him on 18 April 1874, at her summer residence in the Isle of Wight.

The VC carving on Sgt McGaw’s tomb in the English Cemetery in Kyrenia/Girne, North Cyprus.

Today Sgt McGaw's original medal forms part of The Lord Ashcroft Collection.