Post by Waverley on Oct 15, 2009 7:47:50 GMT 1
The idea for the Authuille Memorial was first muted after several visits to the Somme by Charlie McDonald and several members of the Thistle & Poppy Society. Initially the idea was to erect a statue which would have featured 'Mother Glasgow' looking out over the Leipzig Salient for her lost sons of the 15th , 16th and 17th Battalions. However, this idea had to be shelved due to the the financial costs that such a project would entail.
By chance Charlie McDonald happened to be speaking to a neighbour of his Mick McLaughlin in their local pub. On hearing how the Thistle and Poppy Society had abandoned their plans for a monument he asked Charlie to submit a design for a possible Memorial Plaque which he would present to his brother in law Mr.Thomas McGuigan a monumental sculptor in the Lanarkshire town of New Stevenson. Initially Charlie was faced not only faced with the task of having to work on a suitable text and design for the proposed memorial plaque but also finding a suitable location to erect the plaque in France. After researching through the official histories of the three battalions it was decided to use part of the sermon delivered by the Reverend Herbert Gray at a memorial service commemorating the Fallen of the 17th Battalion Battalion in Glasgow Cathedral on the first anniversary of the battle of the Somme.
MEMORIAL SERVICE IN GLASGOW CATHEDRAL 1917.
A Memorial Service in honour of the officers, non-commissioned officers and men of the 17th Highland Light Infantry who fell in the battle of the Somme and elsewhere was held at Glasgow Cathedral, on July 8th, 1917. Fully 1,200 people were present, and many soldiers of all ranks were among the congregation, including a number of wounded men belonging to the Battalion. The "Dead March in Saul" was played at the commencement, and the service was most impressive throughout. The preacher was the Rev. A. Herbert Gray, one time Chaplain of the Battalion, and the service included the anthem, " What are these? " sung by the choir.
Preaching from the text= "We also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses," Mr. Gray said: ' It must not be to mere mourning that we give ourselves this afternoon. We are met to recall a very great page in the history of our city and district. In the year 1916, the hundreds of young men of whom we are thinking dared to die in a great cause. Young, strong, and free, full of high hopes and great purpose, in love with life, and in a hundred ways fitted for mastery in it, they yet consented to deal with death. A hundred other ambitions had flushed their hearts, but because humanity called they laid them all aside and went to the great war. No such life was their choice, but because it was their destiny they accepted it with a smile. No compulsion save that of honour constrained them. They were recruited simply by conscience and the claims of humanity. They made one of the finest Battalions that ever left these shores, for some of the very best of the rising generation were in their ranks. And though they were not soldiers by profession they proved themselves worthy of a regiment that has traditions of honour as old as the British Army. " Wherefore, here in God's House, we may well first of all rejoice concerning them, and give thanks to God who has put so great a spirit into man. Though tears be in our hearts we must not fail to be proud and thaukful - proud because they were our brothers, and thankful because they finished their course in faith." After mentioning the subject of a suitable memorial, and suggesting that there could be nothing more worthy than the monument of a Britain turned to God, the preacher concluded with the following impressive words :
"From a hundred lonely graves in that foreign land - from the spots where they fell, and which now are sacred spots for us - our dead are asking us when we mean to erect that monument. From trench and shell hole where death found them, their voices call - young, musical voices, the voices of boys still in their teens, the voices of martyrs on life's threshold. Scarce a wind can blow that will not waft to you these voices. And they ask a better Britain as their monument. They ask it of you and me. Shall we not go from this place resolved to build it?"
www.thomasmcguiganandson.co.uk/
MEMORIAL SERVICE GLASGOW CATHEDRAL 1996.
The Glasgow Herald , Monday 24th June, 1996.
Kenny McMahon fixes the plaque to the wall of the chapel of Saint Fursey in the village of Athuille.
The Church of St.Fursey in the village of Authuille