Excerpts from the Diary of Patrick Cameron Macrae (1889-1917)

Dr Patrick Cameron Macrae from his obituary notice in Celtic Monthly, May 1917

Nobody knows our destination… Thus reads an early entry in the war diary of Patrick Cameron Macrae, my great-grandmother’s brother. Patrick – a lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps – had shipped for France from Southampton two nights before on 29 July 1915. He started his diary, which he regularly punctuated with sketches such as those featured here, on the evening of his departure. Now, on 1 August, he and the other men of the 50th Field Ambulance were leaving Le Havre. As the train pulled out of the city he took note: ‘First signs of war – some German prisoners loading wagons – great burly men’.

Born in Inverness, Patrick was a Macrae on both sides of his family; his parents had moved there from Lochalsh and Glenshiel, where Macraes had lived for hundreds of years, in the last decades of the 19th century (Glenshiel was the site of an abortive Jacobite uprising in 1719). Patrick grew up in Dalwhinnie, where his father John was station master, and excelled in the local schools as his prize copy of Wordsworth still attests.

From Dalwhinnie he went on to the University of Edinburgh, where he studied surgery and enrolled in the Officers’ Training Corps; he was also president of the Celtic Society and captain of the Shinty team. (It was with some justice, then, that his obituary would describe him as ‘one of the most promising young Celts of to-day’.) On taking his degree in 1915 he joined the 50th Field Ambulance, which was attached to the 37th Division, as a lieutenant; in October he would be promoted to captain.

Patrick’s school record from Kingussie Public School, noting his excellent adacemic achievements

Along with his diary, which he kept in a standard-issue ‘Army Book 152’, Patrick also took his bagpipes with him to the Front. He found a good excuse to take them out the day after leaving Le Havre: ‘[m]et old friend Macpherson in A.S.C. also billeted here – played a tune on the bagpipes for his benefit in the evening’ (2 Aug). On an idle afternoon just over two weeks later at Hazebrouck, he took out his bagpipes again to strike up a famous Scottish march: ‘Enjoying little nap in tent on stretcher Roddy playing tin whistle others out – when Brigadier General appears at tent door much to our consternation – enquires with veiled sarcasm if “this is the hospital” – very unfortunate. After Brigadier well away – bethought myself of a quiet tune on the bagpipes and had just begun the “79th’s” when another staff officer appeared – he seemed rather amused than annoyed – fear 50th F.A. won’t have much of a reputation for hard work’ (Aug 21).