#instruments of war

[nemirutami]

Posting Chapter 2 cover here (pages will be individually uploaded on twitter+bsky and then bulk uploaded to tumblr and tapas when I have enough of them)! 🎶🎹

Tapas link to all chapters thus far: tapas.io/series/Instruments-Of-War/info

[dailymtgflavortext]

Perfect for keeping time at a battle or a ball.

-Instruments of War

[scotianostra]

[scotianostra]

George Frederick Findlater was born on 15th February 1872 at Turriff, Aberdeenshire.

I try to avoid posting about more recent wars i.e the past 150 years or so, but now and then you come across a story that needs to be told, this is such an occasion.

Findlater attended the school in Turriff but left at a young age to work as a farm labourer; back then children were permitted to leave school at thirteen. Two months after his sixteenth birthday, on 7 April 1888, he travelled to Aberdeen and enlisted in the 2nd Battalion, Gordon Highlanders and was sent out to Ceylon.

He transferred to the 1st Battalion for a more active military career on the North-West Frontier. He was a private when the battalion stormed the hills at Malakand. His boot was hit but he was unhurt. In Dec 1896 he became a piper and as such was part of the Tinah Field Force in 1897.

At Dargai he was one of 5 pipers in the Gordons. The pipe-major was unable to continue after being hit in the chest. Findlater claimed that he did not hear the order to play Cock o' the North which is a marching tune. He chose to play a quick strathspey, The Haughs of Cromdales which he thought more suitable. He felt sick with pain after he was shot whilst three-quarters of the way across an exposed strip of land. He fell and, leaning against a rock, continued to play his pipes as blood ran from his wounds.

He became a celebrity when the Gordons returned home. He received his VC  in May 1898 and retired from the army soon afterwards. The citation read: 'During the attack on the Dargai Heights on 20 October 1897, Piper Findlater, after being shot through both feet and unable to stand, sat up, under a heavy fire, playing the Regimental March to encourage the charge of the Gordon Highlanders.' He received many requests to perform in public. The War Office were scandalised that he was having to augment his meagre pension by taking money for performances. At the Alhambra Theatre he received £100 a week, but soldiers were barred from attending. In that year, 1898, he was involved in a lawsuit for breach of promise and the audiences began to turn on him. So he left the country for a while and toured North America.

In 1899 he returned home and married Nellie. He set them up with a farm in Banffshire and had 5 children. When the First World War broke out he re-enlisted and was appointed pipe-major in the 9th Battalion. But due to ill health he had to retire in 1915. He spent the rest of his life as a farmer and died in 1947 aged 70.

The medals George Findlater won and  his pipes are on display at The Gordon Highlanders Museum Aberdeen. 

You can read the full version of the story of this brave man here http://www.findlater.org.uk/Piper.htm

[srodman]

The Japanese tubas of war. Seriously. Via