Evening Telegraph (First Edition)

Kids bring tales to life

SIX of The Black Watch regiment’s most memorable stories are being introduced to the next generation in a comic book.

A group of 30 Perth Grammar School pupils worked with the city’s Black Watch Museum on the project.

The children researched and chose the stories based on objects on display in the museum and designed and drew comic strips.

They have been compiled into a guide to be given to museum visitors this summer.

The pupils got their hands on some of the first copies when they were invited back to the museum for a launch party.

The comic, titled Brilliant Black Watch Stories, includes the story of Lance Corporal Smith Cameron’s lucky penny.

The Black Watch soldier kept the keepsake in his helmet as a good luck charm. And, in 1917, it saved his life when he was shot in the head.

Another story focuses on Lance Corporal David Finlay’s Victoria Cross, which was awarded for bravery during the battle of Aubers Ridge in 1915 when the Fifer carried a wounded man to safety.

A third story tells the tale of the hard and tasteless army biscuits soldiers carried in their rations.

These were so hard they were sent them home from the front as postcards with loved ones’ names and addresses written on them.

The Second World War also figures in the story of Rob Roy’s bullet-scarred kilt.

Pipe Major Rob Roy piped his battalion into battle against the Germans in Tobruk in 1941. Despite being shot, not once but twice, he carried on before being shot a third time.

Amazingly, he survived, and his bravery earned him the nickname The Piper of Tobruk.

And there’s even a ghost story that tells the eerie tale of Major Campbell of Inverawe, whose death in The Black Watch assault on Fort Carillon in the US in 1758 had supposedly been foretold 18 years earlier by a ghost.

The youngsters spent three months working with museum staff and volunteers on the project and artist Jon Hoad gave them advice.

The 12-page comic book will be given to every child who buys a ticket to the museum this summer.

Madeline Greene, learning and audiences officer, says: “Sometimes you wonder if stories are connecting with young people, but when you get to the point where they’re arguing over which ones they want to tell you know something’s working.”