In the early part of last century, a Dundee mother, Mrs James McKimmie, had a premonition she could not erase from her mind.
It came in a dream and showed her third son, Willie, lying in a bed with a white bandage across his forehead.
He looked deathly pale and her mother, who died in 1894, was at the bedside.
In the dream, Mrs McKimmie’s mother said, “Don’t put yourself about, he is all right. You will be pleased that you have seen him.”
Willie appeared to rise up in his bed, open his eyes, shut them again and vanish.
Mrs McKimmie, 33 Hill Street, recounted the dream to The Courier in September 1914 as she packed her seventh son off to war.
Read about a mother’s premonition of wartime tragedy and if it came true in @thecourieruk on April 29 pic.twitter.com/TIh4oAbWWO
— Chris Ferguson (@C_CFerguson) April 28, 2014
“It was a curious dream and I can’t get it out of my head,” Mrs McKimmie told our reporter.
The sons were John (31) 4th Battalion (City of Dundee) The Black Watch; James (30), Seaforths; William (28) Black Watch, India: George (25), 4th Battalion: Edward (22) Dundee RAMC: Thomas (20), Argylls: David (18), Dundee ASC.
Her daughter’s husband, Stewart Stark (32), 20 North Ellen Street, was with the Highland Light Infantry.
When the king read Mrs McKimmie’s story he sent her a letter wishing her sons “success, health and happiness in the noble careers they had chosen.”
In the absence of breadwinners, Mrs McKimmie had to move in with her daughter. But she cherished the hope her she could reunite the family in her own home at New Year 1914. When you chance across a story like that, you owe it to history to find out how it ended.
We know now there was to be no New Year reunion in 1914. In May 1916, Thomas was wounded by a grenade that killed the soldier beside him.
In our report of his injuries it was stated that his brothers James and William had already been killed. I have not yet unearthed how William died but I have discovered just three brothers survived the war.
The final tragedy came in November 1918 when John drowned at Ardrossan. He had been looking forward to demobilisation at New Year.
I have yet to discover the name of the fourth brother killed. A few doors up from the McKimmies, at 27 North Ellen Street, the Lindsays were mourning the loss of a third brother. William (23), Black Watch, died carrying ammunition to the front.
Peter and George had been killed already and James was gassed in May 1915.
Meanwhile, at 25 Campbell Street, Lochee, a perplexed father was pleading with authorities to spare his eighth son military service. Charles Sandison already had seven boys at war and asked a tribunal to spare David (18) an apprentice mechanic.
One son had been killed at the Somme, two had been wounded and Mr Sandison submitted he had done his duty. David was given six months’ exemption.