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Pte. Alexander Herd Simpson
British Army 7th Battalion Black Watch
from:St Andrews
My grandfather Alec Simpson joined the Fife Territorial Battalion, the 7th Black Watch during WWI, he was probably recruited in St Andrews where he was living at the time and working as a golf club maker. He then went to Kinghorn Fort on the south coast of Fife near Kirkaldy for training and to assist in coastal defence and sent a photo home from there on 9th of April 1915 showing him dressed as an MP. While fighting near Festubert in France on about 24th May 1915 Alec was wounded in the thigh and the shoulder and spent the night in no man's land waiting to be rescued. He was then saved by Captain C.H. Maxwell and sent to Edmonton Military Hospital in Silver Street, North London. It was there he met my grandmother, a nurse and they fell in love and were later married. He had many operations on his leg and always walked with a limp and used a cane. My grandmother kept the newspaper clipping regarding his injury but I don't know what newspaper it came from. If anyone knows I would love to find out. I also have a group photo showing him dressed as an MP, maybe your family member is in the photo?
The article reads: Another man who fared badly out in the open was Pte. A. H. Simpson, formerly a golf club maker with Messrs Forgan, St Andrews. Sergt. Cecil ? also a lad from the “Grey Cityâ€, saw him fall; but as Alick immediately lit a cigarette, it was thought that his wounds were slight. Next morning, however, while we were all busy at our allotted tasks, a faint cry was heard from "No Man's Land," and a soldier was seen to be lying a considerable distance in front of our line. Word was sent round to Captain C.H. Maxwell, our Anstruther officer, that there seemed to be one of our men lying out in the open. When next the call came, Captain Maxwell shouted in reply, "Hello, who are you?" "I belong to the 7th Black Watch." came the response.
A Gallant Captain.
Without a moment's hesitation the gallant Captain, calling upon someone to accompany him, jumped over the parapet, and made his way in the direction from which the call had come. Sergt. Douglas F. Adamson - "Big Dob" as we used to call our popular Cupar comrade - and Pte. William Winton, Milton of Balgonie, were close at Captain Maxwell's heels. Together they reached the wounded man, who proved to be Pte. Simpson. Captain Maxwell and Pte. Winton immediately carried him in, and as they raised him he pointed to a shell-hole nearby, where lay L/Cpl. W.B. Watson, a fellow-townsman of Captain Maxwell. Poor Watson had been severely peppered by machine gun fire, and succumbed to his wounds. Sergt. Adamson at once raised him on his shoulders, and he, too, was brought back into our own lines.
The machine gun section, under Lieut. A. C. Westwood, had also been having their own share of the casualties, and the first Cupar member of our battalion lost his life here. This was Pte. John Pratt, previously an ironmonger, with Capt. T. J. Robertson’s firm. He had been out making a sap for the machine gun in front of the line, when a shrapnel shell came over. A fragment hit him on the head, and he died almost immediately. Two other Cupar men were wounded by the flying metal – Pte. William Smith, who, singularly enough, had entered the trenches on his nineteenth birthday, and Pte. David.
