STRATHBLANE FIRST WORLD WAR PROJECT: 24 FERGUSON THOMSON, PRIVATE, SCOTS GUARDS, AGED 22.
family photograph opposite).
The Thomson family continue to make regular visits there.
“Private Fergus Thomson, Scots Guards, son of Mr Thomson, The Clachan, Blanefield, has been awarded the Military Medal…..He was the first man to enter the post, himself, capturing two of the enemy, fearlessly, and on his own initiative entering a shelter and clearing it of the enemy. He displayed throughout the operation the most marked courage and coolness.”
Milngavie & Bearsden Herald July 5 1918.
The light smile of Guardsman Thomson, displaying the ribbon flash of the Military Medal, contrasts with the serious look on the face of the 10-year old Fergie Thomson in a remarkable family portrait taken 12 years earlier. In one the young soldier leans casually on the arm of his chair. In the other he stands stiffly (front row second from right) with his parents and numerous older siblings, all dressed in their finery for a special celebration, yet appearing remarkably grim-faced and suspicious of the camera.
Another photograph of the extended family taken at the same time (1906), outside their modest cottage at Auldmurroch Toll, New Kilpatrick, would suggest they had gathered for the wedding of his sister Annie (back row, second left) who married in September of that year.
Ferguson Nelson Thomson, always known as Fergie, had been born there in August 1896, the youngest of Thomas Thomson and Janet Nelson’s twelve children and named after one of Janet’s brothers. How such a large family squeezed into such a small cottage challenges the imagination.
Thomas and Janet had married at Carluke in 1877 when both were employed as farm servants, later moving to New Kilpatrick, then Bardowie Lodge in Baldernock, until they finally settled at Clachan Cottage on the Carbeth Estate near Blanefield, owned by the Barns Graham family.
The Thomsons were obviously a close-knit and hard-working family. In the 1911 Census, Thomas, aged 54, was working as a road surfaceman employed by the County Council. Sons Thomas and William were joiners and 16-year old Davie had found employment as a domestic gardener, while 14-year old Fergie was still at school. Living with them was granddaughter Jeanie, born illegitimately to the Thomsons’ eldest daughter Jane. (They continued to care for the little girl after her mother married and moved away.)
Jeanie was only three years younger than Fergie, her uncle, and we can imagine the two children hurrying down the Cuilt Brae together each day to Strathblane School and later making the uphill trudge homeward. The school log shows Jeanie was twice awarded the Bible Knowledge Prize.
Fergie was 20 by the time he enlisted on the 24th November 1916 in Stirling as a Private with the 1st Battalion Scots Guards. From August 1917 he served in France. His brothers had also joined up. Alec was serving with the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders and Thomas with the Royal Engineers. And though, Will and Davie had emigrated to Canada before the outbreak of war, they enlisted together in January 1918 in the 1st Depot Battalion, Alberta Regiment of the Canadian Army, attached to the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Co. (They were both employed there as section foremen.) So by 1918 the Thomson family had five sons in uniform.
In May 1918, while Fergie’s Battalion was battling on the Western Front, his group was sent on a night patrol to locate and secure an enemy post. The group was split in two and crept around the post, then rushed it with bayonets fixed. The Milngavie & Bearsden Herald takes up the story: “[Private Thomson] was the first man to enter the post, himself, capturing two of the enemy, fearlessly, and on his own initiative entering a shelter and clearing it of the enemy. He displayed throughout the operation the most marked courage and coolness”. For his bravery he was awarded the Military Medal, presented to warrant officers, NCOs and other ranks for gallantry in action against the enemy.
Ironically, in the same newspaper, below the article about Fergie’s medal, there is a paragraph stating that “Strathblane is not likely to be a fruitful recruiting ground. The men there confess themselves physical weaklings”. A tug-of-war contest for the Red Cross sports day had been arranged between Milton of Campsie and Strathblane. The Miltonians “got together a quintette of stalwarts” but the Strathblane team insisted that they pull six of their men. The Milton men had no doubt of their ability to win this unequal contest but refused to do so. The report ends with the words – “Evidently there are a lot of Grade 3 men about Strathblane”. A century later surely there would have been much activity on Facebook and Twitter about this unfortunate juxtaposition!
Any happiness felt by Fergie’s family in celebrating his award, would be sadly short-lived. His battalion, the First Scots Guards, was transferred to the 2nd Guards Brigade, which was soon involved in the capture of the Hindenburg support line. The Hindenburg Line, named by the British after German Commander in Chief Paul von Hindenburg, was a heavily fortified zone running for several miles between the north coast of France and Verdun, near the border between France and Belgium. The Germans knew it as the Siegfried Line, as in the morale-boosting World War II song “We’re Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line”. The real thing consisted of row upon row of barbed wire, six defensive lines and many concrete firing positions, all around 6,000 yards wide. In late September, British, Australian, French and American forces joined together in the attack on the line, successfully breaching it on 29th September, the day Fergie died.
During the passage of the Canal du Nord, Fergie sustained wounds from which he never recovered, the second last man from the village to be killed before the end of the war. He was 22.
His grieving parents applied for and were sent a photograph by the Graves Registration Department of the War Office, showing the simple wooden cross marking his grave at Thilloy Road Cemetery at Beaulencourt, France and which they treasured for the rest of their lives.
After the breakthrough of September 29, the Germans were forced to retreat. The Allies were able to press home their advantage during October, which turned out to be the final month of the First World War. The Armistice was declared, less than six weeks after Fergie’s death. (His brothers all survived the war.)
Janet and Thomas remained at Clachan Cottage until their deaths in 1931 and 1936 respectively, and are remembered on a gravestone in Strathblane churchyard, together with their sons Fergie and Will, and daughters Maggie and Mary. Will had died in Vancouver in 1933, while Davie was tragically killed in 1960 when the brakes failed on his logging truck at Campbell River, British Columbia.
But Fergie’s older brother Thomas and his wife Mary Maclean continued to live in the village, firstly at Park Terrace and later Dumbrock Crescent. And so the family name lived on in Strathblane until the death in 2006 of their son, the village postman Colin Thomson, who was well known in the area.
In addition to the Military Medal, Ferguson Thomson was awarded the Victory Medal & the British War Medal posthumously. He is also remembered on Scottish National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle and on a gravestone in the carefully maintained plot at Thilloy Road Cemetery, which members of the Thomson family have visited regularly over the years.