Soldier confirmed dead after months missing

A Doune soldier, posted missing almost four months earlier, was reported killed in France. Pte Morton Winter, Seaforth Highlanders, was described as a keen soldier who enlisted early in the war having before worked as a clerk at railway stations at Doune and Stirling. He was declared missing at the time of the German offensive on March 21, 1918. His family in Doune were in July, 1918, told he was killed on the third day of the battle after suffering a severe gunshot wound to the thigh and a fracture of the leg below the knee.

Aberfoyle soldier Pte Ferracher McKerracher, Black Watch, wrote to his father, who lived at the village’s Craiguchty Terrace, stating he was a prisoner-of-war in Germany but otherwise “quite well”.

Mr John Ogilvie, Old Town, Bannockburn, received word his son, Robert, serving with the Royal Scots, was wounded in the right arm and in hospital in France. He was formerly employed with Kerse Mill Stores. Pte Charles Pollock, whose father lived in Main Street, Bannockburn, sustained a bullet wound to the arm and was in hospital in Rouen. He was in the Cameron Highlanders but before joining up had been employed with his father as a grocer.

At the latest county recruitment tribunal, Mrs Colville, Arngomery House, Kippen, appealed for the exemption from service of her chauffeur, 45-year-old Angus McPhail who was classed Grade One. The tribunal was told Mr McPail also performed other duties for Mrs Colville including looking after the house’s “gas plant”, attending livestock and, in the absence of a keeper, maintaining a check on game. Seven men had previously been employed at the house and Mr McPhail was the only one left. Mrs Colville had never before tried to halt the recruitment to the military of other men who had been in her service but felt she should be allowed to retain Mr McPhail.

The tribunal decided a man with a lower grading than Mr McPhail could be recruited to do his work at the house, and consequently the appeal was refused.