Like many other war memorials, the one in Strathblane carries the quotation from the Book of Ecclesiastes: “Their name liveth for evermore”. But in 2025, when members of Strathblane Heritage decided to research the lives of the local men who died in the Second World War, there was a problem.
The memorial is inscribed with the names of six men whose lives were claimed by that conflict. After 1945 they were added to those of 27 Strathblane servicemen who had perished in the First World War. But there was a seventh man, who had a Commonwealth War Grave in Strathblane cemetery but did not appear on the memorial.
Daniel Roy Ferguson Davidson (known to his family as Fergus) was born in 1922 and lived in Blanefield, where his father worked on the Duntreath Estate but when Daniel was ten years old both his parents died of influenza and he was taken in by a spinster aunt. In 1942 this by now tall lanky lad enlisted in the RAF and became a leading aircraftman. He was sent to West Africa where the British were assembling aircraft and flying them up a secret route to Egypt to take part in the battle for North Africa. The humidity and tropical diseases associated with service in West Africa took their toll on those who served there and tragically Daniel developed pulmonary tuberculosis. Though he returned to Scotland after the war, he became a patient at Hairmyres Sanitorium near the then village of East Kilbride. He died there in March 1946, still technically classed as “on active service” because he had never been demobbed.
Strathblane Heritage secretary Jude Gregor took on the task of researching Daniel’s life and war record. Jude said: “Sadly Daniel seemed to have been a lost child. Orphaned aged ten, he was only 24 when he died. Though his life was claimed by tuberculosis and he did not pass away until 1946, he is just as much a victim of the Second World War as the other six men on the memorial.”
Jude was determined to add Daniel’s name, despite a severe shortage of monumental sculptors qualified to do the work, following the Covid pandemic. But she persisted and in May 2026, 70 years after Daniel’s death, a stone mason from Thomas Allan of Stirling added Daniel’s name and rank to the other six. And Jude had the pleasure of informing Daniel’s niece Fiona (his only known descendant) that her lost uncle’s name will indeed live on. Jude said: “I’m extremely satisfied finally to see Daniel where he belongs.” For Daniel’s full story see World War Two – Strathblane Seven
