Fighting On The Front Line

Following on from The Highland Furies, in which she traced the regiment’s history from the inception to the late Victorian era, Victoria Schofield tells the story of The Black Watch in the twentieth and Twenty- first centuries, she tracks its fortunes through the second South African War, two World Wars, the Korean War, The Mau Mau uprising, ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland and the war in Iraq – up to the Black Watch’s merger with the five other regiments to form the Royal Regiment of Scotland in 2006.

Drawing on diaries, letters and memoirs, but also on interviews with living veterans from 1939 onwards, Victoria Schofield weaves the multiple strands of the story into an epic narrative of a heroic body of officers and men over a century of warfare. In her sure hands, the story of The Black Watch is no arid recitation of campaigns, dates and battle honours, but a richly rewarding account of the fortunes of war of a remarkable institution – a modern day chanson de geste celebrating the deeds of a regiment that has played a distinguished role in British, and World, history.