Hero's battered bugle is star exhibit in WWI Easter Ross showcase
A POIGNANT relic of World War I — which sounded the order for hundreds of Seaforth Highlanders to surge "over the top" from the Belgian trenches into enemy fire — is going on show to thousands of worldwide visitors.
The battered bugle used by Easter Ross Seaforth bugler and drummer Thomson Campbell, who came from Kilmuir Easter, Portleich, Invergordon, is part of a display in the British Legion Hall to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of what became known as the Great War.
As well as being a popular social venue for local folk, the British Legion museum and hall is a starting point on a list of visitor attractions for large numbers of cruise passengers alighting at the town’s deepwater port from liners throughout the summer months.
The instrument has been loaned by the bugler’s nephew Ian Campbell (77), of Gordon Place, Invergordon, who was given it by his older brother Thomson, who was named after his uncle.
Ian explained how the bugle had found its way back to Easter Ross from the war-ravaged countryside of Belgium: "My uncle, who worked as an apprentice gardener on Tarbat Estate, signed up with the regiment when he was 18 at the start of the war in 1914. He was killed in Belgium and his name appears here on the local war memorial.
"He had been injured in the arm and treated at a field hospital but, as was the practice then, if you had been wounded but could still walk, you were quickly returned to active duty.
"Shortly after this he just disappeared in action and one of his mates, who was from the Black Isle, found his bugle, which he decided to take home to give to my grandmother."
The bugle was passed down to Ian’s older brother by his father, Angus.
Said Ian, who did his national service with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders during the 1950s: "My brother was given the bugle and I was given a photograph of our uncle. However, my brother is now suffering from Alzheimer’s and was keen the bugle should be passed down through the family so he gave it to me.
"The fact that it is so battered shows how much hard use it had in Belgium — it would have been used to sound the advance in battles where literally thousands were killed in a matter of hours.
"I value it very much as part of my family’s history and am glad it will help mark the anniversary of World War I in Invergordon."