Medals and awards

HONOURING THE FOCHABERS MEN.

E Company, 3rd Volunteer Battalion Seaforth Highlanders, paraded in review order on Monday evening in honour of their four comrades newly returned from the front. The occasion was further signalised by the presentation of a gold medal to each of the four volunteer soldiers, viz. – Privates John BURGESS, Robert GRAY, Chas. ROSS, and William INNES, subscribed for by the inhabitants of Fochabers and district. Captain Ross, Rothes, the commanding officer of the Fochabers Volunteer Corps, made the presentation on behalf of the Emergency Committee, who had the carrying out of the arrangements, while Mrs Ross assisted in pinning the medals on to the soldiers’ breasts. The volunteers paraded on the Market Green, fully 70 strong, and, headed by the pipe and drum band under Pipe-Major McKenzie, marched through the town to the square, the four volunteer soldiers taking the place of honour in the front rank of fours. The cadet corps from Milne’s Institution, under command of Mr Booth, M.A., again followed as a second company. A platform was improvised by a lorry, upon which the four soldiers were ranged, also Captain Ross, Mrs Ross, and Lieutenant Christie; the cadet corps and the volunteer corps in front, while the square was literally packed with a dense mass of people from town and country.

Capt. Ross made the presentation as follows: – Ladies and gentlemen and volunteers, – it is no small honour – and certainly no small responsibility – that the Emergency Committee have put upon me in having asked me to preside on this most unique and most interesting occasion, and I need not tell you that I feel both the honour and the responsibility very much indeed. It will be in the recollection of most of you that it was on that very stormy Monday night, the 5th of February, 1900, the Fochabers Company of Volunteers met in the Gordon Arms Hotel to do honour to the brave and gallant soldiers now before you on the eve of their departure to south Africa, and we wished them God-speed and success in the work before them, and a speedy and safe return home. The return home was not quite so speedy as many of us desired; but have we not great reason for gratitude and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His goodness and protecting care over our brave comrades, and in bringing them back to us and to their loved ones safe and sound? They have come back bronzed with the sun of South Africa, and looking seasoned, hardened, and experienced warriors, and who would grudge them the hearty home-coming welcome they received on Tuesday last for their patriotism, valour, endurance, and services to their country and King? I cannot do better at this juncture than read the lines of welcome by Bernard George Hoare, which appeared in one of the Inverness papers last week –

Back to the heart of your own native home”.

Today we recall with gratitude and with pride the readiness with which our gallant fellows, some fifteen months ago, responded to our country’s appeal; and since they left here they have always been present in mind to us; and on their return home it is only right and fitting that they should be the recipients of some lasting memento of their patriotism, endurance, and pluck during the campaign, and we are here met tonight in public assembly to testify in tangible form our admiration and appreciation of all the hardships and the sacrifices endured necessarily connected with such a campaign. Your civilian and volunteer friends have decided to present you each with a gold medal commemorative of the stirring events you have passed through in South Africa, and I have now the pleasure of calling upon my wife to pin the medals to your breasts; and allow me to express the hope that this ceremony and presentation will in some degree compensate you for the hardships endured, and the dangers encountered in defence of King and country, in the sanguinary struggle in South Africa.

The ceremony of pinning the medals on to the breasts of the four young soldiers having been performed by Mrs Ross, amidst the cheers of the assemblage, Capt. Ross resumed: – I am sure it must be a great pleasure to you all to be back again among your relatives and friends, and I trust that the bracing atmosphere of your native hills, the revisiting of scenes of your childhood and early manhood, will all conspire towards the speedy restoration of your health, and when your health and strength have been fully restored, let us express the hope that you will have every facility extended to you to re-enter your civil pursuits in which you have already been engaged. Ladies and gentlemen and volunteers, I feel it is needless for me to enlarge further, as all of you know the past and present doings of the gallant Seaforths in South Africa. I shall not detain you any longer, but shall call upon you to give ringing cheers, not only for our brave and gallant warriors now happily with us tonight, but also to those of our company who are now doing honourable duty in South Africa.