Six of the Black Watch regiment’s most brilliant stories are being introduced to the next generation thanks to a new comic book.
A group of 30 Perth Grammar School pupils worked with the city’s Black Watch Museum on the project.
The children chose and researched the stories, based on objects on display in the museum, and designed and drew their own comic strips.
They have now been compiled in a new guide which will be given to visitors to the attraction this summer.
The pupils got their hands on some of the first copies when they were invited back to the museum for a special launch party.
The comic, titled Brilliant Black Watch Stories, includes the story of Lance Corporal Smith Cameron’s lucky penny.
The Black Watch soldier kept the keepsake in his helmet as a good luck charm. And in 1917, it saved his life when he was shot in the head.
Another of the stories focuses on a more rarefied object from the collection – Lance Corporal David Finlay’s Victoria Cross.
The medal was awarded for bravery during the battle of Aubers Ridge in May 1915 when the Fifer carried a wounded man to safety.
A third story tells the tale of the notoriously hard and tasteless army biscuits which soldiers carried in their rations.
These were so durable they were sent them home from the front as postcards with loved ones’ names and addresses written on them.
A tattered kilt, a sunken ship and a ghostly warning
The Second World War also figures in the story of Rob Roy’s bullet-scarred kilt.
Pipe Major Rob Roy piped his battalion into battle against the Germans in Tobruk in 1941. Despite being shot, not once but twice, he carried on until he was shot a third time.
Amazingly, he survived, and his bravery earned him the nickname ‘The Piper of Tobruk’.
Women get a look in in the story of the Birkenhead Jugs.
These silver claret jugs were saved from the HMS Birkenhead by a soldier’s wife in 1852. As the troop ship was sinking, with her husband and the other men on board, she smuggled them onto a lifeboat beneath her skirt and later sold them.
And there’s even a ghost story, in the shape of Ticonderoga.
It tells the eerie tale of Major Campbell of Inverawe, whose death during the Black Watch assault on Fort Carillon in the US in 1758 had been foretold 18 years earlier by a ghost.
This spirit, who visited his home in the Highlands, left with the chilling message: “Farewell Inverawe, ‘til we meet again at Ticonderoga”.
It was only of the day of the assault 18 years later that he learned the Native American name for Fort Carillon area was… Ticonderoga.
Hopes comic will inspire more youngsters
The youngsters spent three months working with museum staff and volunteers on the project. Local artist Jon Hoad also gave them lots of advice.
The 12-page comic book will be distributed to every child who purchases an entry ticket to the museum throughout the summer.
Madeline Greene, learning and audiences officer, says it’s an exciting way to introduce younger visitors to the people behind the stories of the Black Watch Museum.
“Sometimes you wonder if stories are connecting with young people,” she said.
“But when you get to the point where they’re arguing over which ones they want to tell you know something’s working.
“Families have been telling us it’s got them talking too. It’s been a really enjoyable project.”
The collaboration was funded by Museum Galleries Scotland and supported by Developing the Young Workforce Perth and Kinross, as well as the Black Watch Castle and Museum and and Perth Grammar.
Conversation