Mum’s marathon bid for Black Watch heroes

Jun 14 2011 by Denis Brown, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

A PERTH mum presented £700 to the Black Watch Association this week after an endurance effort inspired by her war hero granddad.

Jackie Robertson (40) had to remind herself that her pain in completing the Edinburgh Marathon was nothing compared to what young Black Watch soldier William Currie, her late grandfather, had endured on a World War II ‘Death March’.

The proceeds from the mum-of-three’s brave run were gratefully accepted by Black Watch Association secretary Major Ronnie Proctor.

“Jackie’s got a lot of guts, a great young lass and she put in a supreme effort for us in the marathon,” he told the PA yesterday.

A member of the Black Watch 51st Highland Division, Perth squaddie William Currie was among 10,000 Scots captured at St Valery-en-Caux along with thousands of French soldiers on June 12, 1940.

Some historians believe the Scots – dubbed “the forgotten 51st” – were deliberately left behind while about 350,000 troops were evacuated at Dunkirk so the government could put a positive spin on the capitulation.

After a bloody stand-off, the Allied commanders surrendered, with surviving Black Watch and French troops then forced to march for days before finally reaching Eastern European PoW camps.

“It became known as the Death March and they had to walk for 12 hours a day without much food and not knowing where they would end up or whether they would ever see their families again,” said Mrs Robertson.

“When I was struggling towards the end of the marathon I thought to myself, this is much easier than what my granddad had to endure, at least the end is in sight.

“And that’s what got me over the finishing line.”

Although only two years old when her grandfather died, aged 53, Mrs Roberston has recently got to know him quite well after researching her family’s history.

“I’d known little bits about him being in the war when I was younger, but back then I wasn’t really interested in learning about the war,” she said.

“Churchill apparently didn’t want public morale to be affected so what happened at St Valery was covered up and the Scots were angry as they were just left to it.

“Grandad spent five years in a PoW camp but he said that the Germans were quite good to them, despite the lack of food and the squalor.

“He didn’t speak much about his experiences when he got home but he used to have nightmares and never slept properly, so like many veterans back then, he probably just bottled it all up.

“I know it’s all in the past, but it still makes me feel quite sad.”

Mrs Robertson decided to run the Edinburgh Marathon – her second marathon – as a fundraiser for the regiment and finished in a personal best time of three hours 37 minutes, wearing a ‘Red Hackle’ as a homage to the Black Watch.

Major Proctor said despite the dwindling numbers of surviving Black Watch World War II veterans, a new generation was now developing a keen interest in their forefathers’ sacrifices and the war effort.

Much of this is due to the efforts of Black Watch Association members, who conduct seminars at schools, where children are shown soldiers’ kits, weapons and local press coverage of Perthshire casualties.

“We also show them photos of children their age doing things like putting on gas masks or planting potatoes for the war effort when everyone was on rations,” he said.

“It’s all about trying to personalise history, which seems to be striking a chord with kids of today.”