A taste of Italy, 80 years and counting

A small Italian deli and restaurant in Elm Row holds a special place in many Edinburgh folks' hearts. Valvona & Crolla has weathered many a storm during eight decades - and it was a real treat to meet the hugely entertaining and passionate husband and wife owners.

THERE is opera - Italian, of course - playing softly in the background. Behind a heaving counter stuffed with cold meats and cheese, plump olives and sweet cakes, are shelves crammed with bottles, packets, tins and jars.

Hanging from the ceiling are massive bunches of dried chillies, cooking pots and legs of ham, to the side are jars of artisan honey sourced from a Tuscan hillside with labels lovingly created by the beekeeper's daughter, dried pasta, bottles of olive oil, jars of peppers, boxes of biscuits and countless bottles of wine.

Top to bottom, every inch of space inside Valvona & Crolla's Elm Row delicatessen is occupied, in what appears to be a supreme feat of controlled chaos.

Rewind time to the picture managing director Philip Crolla is holding in his hand. Black and white, it has captured his father, Carlo, behind the deli counter nearly half a century ago. He's jotting something down, while in front of him stand customers no doubt frantically trying to absorb the array of exotic products around them, above their heads dangle clusters of Italian sausages, bunches of garlic and string bags containing little pots of Italian deliciousness.

The years have passed but little - not even the wooden shutters that protected the front of the shop as a wartime mob turned on the innocent Italian community - seems to have changed.

Upstairs Philip and wife Mary Contini are in a room that once housed another Italian family of immigrants, recalling the incredible highs and lows of a family business that not only survived the past 80 years but has flourished.

On the walls around them is another charming sign of how little has changed on the premises - slightly faded pale green heavily patterned wallpaper from another age with rolling hills, white walled houses with terracotta tiled roofs, wooden gates and white turtle doves.

"The family that lived here must have missed home," smiles Philip, whose grandfather, Alfonso Crolla, came to Edinburgh from rural Lazio in 1906 and ended up co-founding the business 80 years ago with fellow immigrant Raffaele Valvona.

"And when you think about it, they would have come from the sun and countryside to a city that was grimy and smoky and dark. It would have been a huge change for them."

They certainly brought a refreshing change for Edinburgh folk, who found their tastebuds and linguistic skills challenged as they got their hungry tongues around spaghetti and linguine, tortellini and macaroni, cappuccino, prosciutto and gelato.

Many made the Elm Row delicatessen their favourite shop. And now, as the family business prepares to celebrate its 80th anniversary, a call has gone out to anyone with memories and photographs of the way it once was to share them.

"This is a special place for many customers," explains Mary, whose grandparents also came to Scotland from the Lazio region at the start of last century. "Their parents came here, or they came as students to buy wine. It's a place that triggers a lot of emotion for a lot of people.

"Food related memories are often very powerful."

Philip and Mary, who as well as company director is an acclaimed food writer, want to gather those memories and add them to their own in a bid to create a diverse portrait of a business that for many is much more than simply a place to shop for Italian food.

For as well as treating tastebuds, the shop introduced many visitors to sights, smells and sounds that transported them straight to a bustling and sometimes bizarre corner of Italy, right in the heart of the city.

Philip, 60, who joined the business aged 17 in 1971, recalls the frantic sight that greeted many as soon as they stepped over the door: "At the front door were two pieces of equipment, a very small Belling oven with five shelves for small pizza trays and a big coffee roaster.

"My father, Carlo, cooked the pizzas, roasted the coffee and served the customers, all at once.

"The pizza at the top of the oven would cook first, so he'd have to rotate them. If he forgot, smoke would pour out and the pizza would be burned.

"At the same time the coffee would be roasting. Roasting coffee was a great skill because you had a five-second window for the perfect roast. It was like the sign a new Pope had been elected: two puffs of smoke meant perfect, three puffs, it was burned.

"So there's a shop full of people at lunchtime who are hungry, and my dad Carlo, who had diabetes and needed to eat, is serving and trying to get the pizzas out and watching the coffee, and suddenly there'd be all this smoke and we'd yell Carlo!'," he laughs.

"The customers loved it. He'd shout, Burned pizza, half price burned pizza!'."

The action behind the counter was just as fascinating as the exotic products on sale, making shopping at Valvona & Crolla a complete sensory assault.

And for the staff, working there was never dull, especially when the coffee roasting system went on fire as oil from the process ignited, prompting them to rush to the scene armed with Fairy Liquid bottles filled with water.

It's almost a wonder that the much-loved deli actually survived for 80 years - especially as its darkest spell during the Second World War almost closed the shutters for good.

"Many Italians who had been born here or had come to start business were arrested," explains Mary, 57.

"It was just after Dunkirk, it was a tense time. The windows of the shop were shattered and the board at the front of the shop is the original one put up in June 1940 to protect the shop. There was a lot of confusion."

Shares in the business that had been forged by Newhaven cafe owner Alfonso and neighbour Raffaele, who ran a continental food warehouse, were temporarily passed out of family hands and the business run by a stranger.

And later, with the family reeling from tragedy and trauma, it fell to Philip's Uncle Victor's shrewd foresight and determination to rebuild the business, first selling shop equipment to fellow Italians whose shops had been damaged in the backlash to later running perhaps the strangest mobile shop imaginable, created from a tall-sided removals van.

"It was like the inside of the shop, but on wheels," laughs Philip. "It had huge shelves that were stacked full of Italian wine and food and it would head off to Fife with my Uncle Dominic driving.

"Unfortunately he quite often came back, having sold stock but without having been paid for it because he felt sorry for some of the less well-off customers."

For Mary, the abiding memory is the cacophony of laughter mixed with lively Italian chat as the family unwittingly turned the deli into a unique shopping experience for their customers.

"Some of the family was at the front counter serving and others in the back slicing the Parma ham, and all these in-jokes were going back and forwards," she smiles. "It was just a great big carry on."

But while the family pauses to reflect on eight decades, they are also looking forward.

For just as Alfonso introduced 1930s Edinburgh to pasta and pizza, and son Victor stunned the city in the Sixties by ditching corks in the family firm's wine bottles in favour of unheard of screw tops, the next generation ensured the Valvona & Crolla name lives on, strengthening ties with small niche Italian producers, developing a new Scottish-themed gift range and broadening their internet shopping service.

And eventually the next generation, Philip and Mary's daughter, Francesca, will take over the reins.

Before then, however, the family is keen to compile a comprehensive tapestry of living memories.

"It's a special place for so many people who shopped here, people bought their gallons of wine here for their student parties and many worked here," adds Mary. "There's a lot of attachment to the place, and we really want to hear about it."

 

How the Second World War tore family apart

GENEROUSLY rotund, thanks to a love for his native Italian food and in his sixties, Alfonso Crolla, below, couldn't have posed much of a threat to British security. But as the Second World War raged and Mussolini declared war, the hard-working Italian was soon caught up in the nightmare of hostilities.

Italy's declaration of war in June 1940 prompted a Cabinet meeting in London to discuss just what to do about the thousands of Italians who had made Britain their home.

Churchill's response would send shockwaves through towns and cities across the country: "Collar the lot."

Alfonso, who had arrived in Scotland in 1906, and his son, Victor, who was born here, were among those treated as "enemy aliens" to be torn from their families and put behind lock and key. For Victor - a kind-hearted soul who Mary recalls telling her during her first stint behind the deli counter to simply charge customers what she thought they could afford - there was a spell in Saughton Prison and then at a camp in the Isle of Man for five years.

Alfonso was sent there too. But he and Mary's grandfather, Cresidio Di Ciacca, were chosen to board the ill-fated SS Arandora Star to be transported to Canadian internment camps. The vessel was torpedoed by a German U-Boat. An estimated 700 people died among them Alfonso and Cresidio.

 

Appeared Edinburgh Evening News 7 March 2014

www.edinburghnews.com

Arctic Convoys: through hell and high water to victory.

THE waves crashed around them, 60ft high, and the men of the Arctic Convoys, frozen to the bone and in terror of the German bombs, pressed on in what Sir Winston Churchill once called "the worst journey in the world".

Of course, he might well have thought that. Those hardy souls on board the merchant ships and the navy vessels charged with protecting them knew better. They knew it was much, much worse than that.

A freezing hell spent dodging Hitler's deadly U-boats and vicious Junkers 88s, sleepless nights and terror ridden days, when the journey around Norway in Arctic seas towards Archangel and Murmansk took them past hundreds of hidden inlets and coves - perfect hiding places for enemy attack.

Conditions were horrific enough. Then there were the sights, the heart-stopping moments when men could only watch helplessly as comrades plunged to their deaths from frozen decks into ice cold water, where within just three minutes they would perish.

Jim Simpson was there, fresh faced, just out of his teens. Today he is in his 91st year, ramrod straight, medals pinned over his heart glittering; the Arctic Emblem - a white polar star with a red Russian dot in its centre, pinned proudly upon his immaculate jacket, his brand new Arctic Star medal shining the brightest.

He sits in a plush armchair in his Barnton Avenue home, a model of a ship on a table nearby, some naval type prints on the wall clues to a remarkable war service that, 70 years on, is as painfully vivid as ever.

Not that he's one for talking too much about it. He hands over some notes a relative has made with help from his wife, Sybil, which detail how he joined HMS Devonshire and headed off on an ocean voyage from which more than 3000 men would never return. The notes are factual and detailed enough yet there is little in the pages to hint at what it was really like for a young Edinburgh lad on one of the most hellish journeys imaginable.

Gently ask him to share some of the emotional turmoil of four years spent bobbing on Arctic waters like a plastic duck in a fairground shooting game, and he looks down at well polished shoes at something suddenly fascinating and totally absorbing.

"I can't really explain it," he says quietly. "When you're being attacked with Junkers and bombers and U-boats on your tail at the same time, wherever you went there was a U-boat behind you.

"Then look around and you can see a wall of water 60 feet high chasing you. We had a lot of near misses. We lost a corvette one night," he adds, and in his mind's eye it's almost certain he can still see a small but hardy little boat, specially built to serve with honour in the convoys, broken by a U-boat torpedo.

"He's never really spoken about it until recently," chips in Sybil, who has heard more about her husband's Arctic Convoys experiences in the last few years than in all their 65 years as a married couple.

She is not the only wife who is only now learning of how spectacular and humbling a job their husbands did during the war. For just what it was really like for the thousands of brave sailors has only recently started trickling out, voices finally found as a campaign aimed at recognising their contribution in the form of a special medal gained momentum, led by, among others, Jock Dempster from Dunbar. Jock, of course, died just weeks after receiving his longed for Arctic Star and before he had the chance to wear it at a public ceremony.

Jim's Arctic Star shares space on his jacket with the 1939-45 Star, the Atlantic medal, the War Medal and a special Russian Convoy Medal awarded by a grateful Russia to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the convoys. His wife keeps the ribbons bright and fresh by scrubbing at them using a toothbrush smeared with a little gentle soap.

They were on his chest again yesterday as he stood in the War Museum at Edinburgh Castle, VIP guest at a new exhibition which tells the remarkable story of the Arctic Convoys through striking images, first-hand testimony and poignant, personal objects.

Among the items on display are an aged telegram delivering the worst news possible to a wife back home of her lost husband, alongside a packing case covered in beautifully coloured labels including one that says simply "with thanks to the British convoys", well-worn uniforms, grainy photographs, and the bell of HMS Edinburgh, sunk by the Germans with her cargo of gold on board, payment from grateful Russians for American help.

Jim was 19 years old when he left home to work in Skara Brae in the Orkneys, building camps for the army and Royal Air Force. After six months he was back in Edinburgh to answer his call-up papers.

Waiting for him after brief training at Devonport was HMS Devonshire, newly refurbished with hi-tech radar designed to help detect U-boats - radar that, along with a brilliant captain, would save the crew's lives time after time.

Her role was to provide cover for air operations by planes launched from aircraft carriers - a death-defying task in itself - from the guns of German battleship Tirpitz, lying in Altenfjord in occupied Norway. The Tirpitz was just one enemy vessel facing the 50 or so ships in the convoys taking vital supplies to Russia, danger came also in frequent fire from Nazi planes and U-boats firing torpedoes night and day.

"We hardly slept," remembers Jim, whose job was "damage control", closing off the bulkheads to prevent the ship taking in water in the event of a direct hit.

"We were never in our hammocks when at sea, if we slept it was usually on the main deck - we could be at 'action stations' for hours.

"Our job was to keep her [Tirpitz] in harbour while the aircraft carriers sent off their planes to bomb her.

"Some of the planes didn't make it back. Sadly quite a few men were lost," he adds. "There was no time to rescue them, there were other planes coming in. It was horrendous for all concerned."

Men went days without sleep, he remembers, warming now to the idea of talking about it. Clothes went unchanged - it was minus 50, the idea of stripping off was unthinkable.

"Conditions were unbelievably bad, the seas were rough, it was freezing cold," he says. "The deck would often freeze - so did the moisture in our noses and our moustaches."

And all the time enemy spotter planes buzzed the convoys, followed by the Junkers 88s in wave after terrifying wave of attack.

"The Junkers dropped their torpedoes mainly at dusk," adds Jim, "it was difficult to see where they were. We opened fire, gunners were shooting all day long. We had to be alert at all times, U-boats were all around. We fired off depth charges from the stern of the ship when they were too close for comfort.

"We didn't think too much about the Germans," he adds. "I suppose they were lads just like us. But it was them, or us."

Jim was eventually demobbed in November 1946 - having left the Arctic he joined HMS Jamaica for service in Indian waters. Life with Sybil from then on involved the much less dramatic task of working in construction and raising their family. Today, they have five grandchildren.

Telling his story now, says Sybil, is mostly for them and their children's sake, so the vital chapter in British war history won't be forgotten.

"He didn't speak about it until there was an Arctic Convoys veterans reunion recently. Since then he's been telling more stories," she adds.

"We want the grandchildren to hear his story before it's too late."

constant threat of attack from air or U-boats

The Arctic Convoys sailed from Britain from August 1941 until May 1945, delivering urgently needed supplies to the Soviet Union including tanks, vehicles, weapons and raw materials.

Their route took them through incredibly harsh environmental conditions in dense fog and turbulent seas, with freezing temperatures causing ice to form on the ships to the extent that it could cause vessels to capsize if it were not removed immediately.

As if the appalling conditions were not enough, there was the constant threat of German attack from the air or from U-boats based in Nazi-occupied Norway. Churchill, right, privately admitted that he would have been happy if even half of the Convoys got through. In fact, the success rate was rather higher, with 707 of the 811 merchant ships to sail arriving safely. However, over 3000 sailors were lost.

One of the most poignant stories in the exhibition is that of convoy PQ17. It was passing the west coast of Nazi-held Norway when incorrect intelligence suggested that the Germans were going to launch a concerted attack. The convoy was ordered to scatter, leaving ships wide open to attack.

Twenty-four of the 35 merchant ships in the convoy were lost.

A frantic rescue operation ensued, featuring vessels including the SS Rathlin which was credited with rescuing 634 crew from 13 sinkings.

One of the personal stories in the display is of James K Thompson, a boatswain on the SS Rathlin. In January 1943, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his role in shooting down two enemy aircraft in defence of convoy PQ17.

The Russian connection is brought up to date with the loan of objects by Timofey Kunitskiy, who works in the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Edinburgh. His grandfather was a senior officer in the Russian navy and was involved in many air reconnaissance operations. Objects on loan include winter-weight fur gloves used in air reconnaissance and various navigational instruments

 

Appeared Edinburgh Evening News May 2013

2013 Johnston Publishing Limited

 

Heroes who must not be forgotten.

A very old one this*... stumbled across, forgot I'd ever written it although obviously the research must have been agony. No reason in particular for suddenly posting it, just that it's always fascinating and humbling to remember those who fought and died in two world wars.
Story mentions plans for a national memorial in honour of the Victoria Cross medal holders... ten years on and I don't believe it's ever happened.
Poignant anniversary next year.... Time to revive the idea, perhaps?

THEY were the bravest of the brave, men who fearlessly disregarded their personal safety to save the lives of others.

In remarkable acts of selflessness, displaying extreme courage and with incredible strength of character as enemy fire poured down, they revealed almost superhuman qualities.

Their reward for laying their lives on the line - and, indeed in many cases, sacrificing them - was to come in the form of a small but enormously precious medal, cast from the bronze of two Russian Crimean War guns captured after the siege of Sebastopol in 1855 and awarded in recognition of exceptional gallantry, regardless of rank or grade.

There have been just 1354 awards of the Victoria Cross since it was instituted in 1856, the merest glimpse of its distinctive crimson ribbon on the breast of a veteran enough to establish him as a military monarch - irrespective of whether he was a private or a colonel, a corporal or a major.

Its civilian equivalent, the George Cross, was instituted in 1940 to replace the Empire Gallantry Medal, the Albert Medal and the Edward Medal.

The decoration has been awarded to a mere 400 people, who, just like their counterparts in the armed forces, have all displayed incredible bravery for others.

While the courage of this select band of individuals could never be in doubt, it is only now that plans are being made to create a National Memorial in their honour and to establish a fund to ensure the restoration and upkeep of many of their far-flung graves - assuming, that is, that the necessary 250,000 pounds can be found.

Of course, such matters would have been far from the minds of the fearless fighting elite from around the Edinburgh area, whose split-second reactions, and fortitude in the face of almost certain death earned them the recognition and gratitude of an entire nation.

They include the likes of Lance-Corporal William Angus, the Great War light infantryman from Linlithgow who voluntarily left his trench in the face of enemy fire to rescue an officer, a deed accomplished despite him sustaining some 40 wounds for his troubles; Leith-born Sapper Adam Archibald, who in 1918 defied machine-gun fire and poison gas to persevere in the essential construction of a floating cork bridge across the Sambre-Oise Canal in France; and the remarkable Corporal Thomas Peck Hunter, a 21-year-old Royal Marine commando from Stenhouse, who sacrificed himself as a target to save his troop. It was April 2, 1945, when Cpl Hunter and his 43 Commando Royal Marine comrades were on the German Gothic Line defences at Lake Comacchio in Italy. Barely more than a teenager, Cpl Hunter was in charge of a Bren gun section when he spotted his men were devoid of cover.

Seizing his gun, he charged across 200 yards of fire-swept open ground towards a group of houses where three heavy machine-guns were lodged. Their gunfire was intense, yet so determined was his bid to detract the Germans from firing at his own men that the enemy was confused. Startled by the ferocity of Hunter's shooting, six of the enemy machine-gunners surrendered, while the remainder of them simply fled.

Cpl Hunter then cleared the entire house, changing several magazines of ammunition as he ran, firing accurately and continuing to draw the enemy fire away from his men. Most of his troops had reached cover by the time he was hit in the head, a single German bullet all it took to snuff the life out of a fighting hero.

Today, the VC which he never lived to see is on show at the Royal Marines Museum in Southsea. Closer to home, there is now a memorial plaque to remind pupils at the Capital's Tynecastle High School of his heroism, while eight cottages in Stenhouse Street West stand in his memory.

Almost 100 years separated him from Lieutenant Robert Blair of the 2nd Dragoon Guards, a 23-year-old from Avontoun in Linlithgow who found himself at Bolandshahr, India, in September 1857. Yet they are linked by the same indefatigable fighting spirit.

Lt Blair had been ordered to take a party of one sergeant and 12 men and bring in a deserted ammunition wagon. But as they approached, almost 60 Indian mutineers on horseback moved in.

It must have been a terrifying sight yet, without hesitation, Lt Blair formed up his men and gallantly led them through the rebels. He made good his retreat without losing a single man, leaving nine enemy dead in his wake. Two years later, however, he was himself dead, a victim of a far trickier foe - smallpox. Today, a plaque in his memory can be seen at the Covenanter's Prison Section in Greyfriars Cemetery.

 

 

In all, more than 30 military elite from around the Edinburgh area were awarded the VC, their heroic deeds stretching from October 1854 and the Crimean War, when Morningside-born Sergeant Henry Ramage of the 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys) galloped to the assistance of a private surrounded by seven Russians whom he duly dispatched, to Cpl Hunter's astonishing Second World War exploits.

Judging whether an act of valour is worthy of a VC is no easy task - the rules stipulate that the event should be witnessed by at least two others and that there should have been a 90 per cent chance of death. And, explains Didy Grahame, joint appeal director of the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association, these were no "brainstorm" incidents by battle-scarred men unaware of the risks they were taking. This is why 294 VCs have been deservedly awarded posthumously throughout the UK since the medal was first introduced.

"These awards are only given when it's known they understood the risks," she says. "Usually they are given to people who have already shown this kind of behaviour on frequent occasions, whose colleagues can confirm that he would have been fully aware of what he or she was doing. That is what underlies these awards."

Now is the time, Ms Grahame says, to ensure an appropriate memorial to VC and GC holders is established - it will be a two-foot square inlaid stone which will rest near the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey, along with a fund which will help guarantee their graves are not allowed to be forgotten.

Of course, acts of supreme courage and bravery do not only occur on the battlefield. And for those civilians who put their own lives on the line for others, there is the George Cross.

There can be few better examples that than of David Brown, the West Calder mine overman, when in January 1947, he continually entered Burngrange Shale Mine pits after a massive explosion, braving raging fires and the threat of collapse, in a bid to reach trapped miners. Finally, while few of us would even be called upon once in our lifetime to commit such unselfish acts of bravery, perhaps it's worth remembering the supreme sacrifice of Private Charles Kennedy, 2nd Bn., The Highland Light Infantry.

Born in West Port, Edinburgh, he was just 24 and serving in Dewetsdorp, South Africa, in 1900 when he carried a wounded comrade three-quarters of a mile to hospital. The next day, he volunteered to carry a message across country over which it would be almost certain death to venture. He had gone barely 20 yards when he was severely wounded.

Pvt Kennedy was made of particularly sterling stuff. Seven years after receiving his VC, he was back home in Edinburgh, casually strolling along Leith Walk, when a runaway horse and cart thundered past. Realising it was heading straight for a group of children playing in the street, he again displayed astonishing courage as he tried to prevent disaster. Tragically, that heroic deed cost him his life.

In an age when footballers, pop idols and movie stars are often referred to as "heroes", Pvt Kennedy was the genuine article. Yet the man who put his life on the line for duty no fewer than three times today lies buried on common ground in North Merchiston Cemetery. His grave is unmarked.

Donations or requests for further information to: The VC and GC Memorial Appeal, Horse Guards, Whitehall, London SW1A 2AX.

 

Roll-call of honour for acts of bravery by Edinburgh's finest

VICTORIA CROSS

Captain William Bloomfield, of Broomfield, Edinburgh, 2nd South African Mounted Brigade, braved 400 yards of machine-gun and rifle fire to reach a wounded man in Miali, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), 1916.

Cpt Walter Brodie, Highland Light Infantry, of Belgrave Crescent, Edinburgh, led charge to evict Germans from British trenches in Belgium, 1914. Eighty of the enemy were killed and 51 taken prisoner.

Lieutenant William Bruce, 59th Scinde Rifles, captured an enemy trench near Givenchy, France, 1914. Despite neck wound, encouraged men to hold out against several counter-attacks until he was killed. 

 Lt Thomas Cadell, 2nd Bengal European Fusiliers, born in Cockenzie. During siege at Delhi, India, 1857, defied enemy attack to bring in two wounded men.

Cpt John Cook, Bengal Staff Corps, Indian Army, braved heavy fire at Peiwar Kotal, Afghanistan, 1878, charging out of the trenches with such impetuosity that the enemy broke and fled. Fought a hand-to-hand battle to save a major's life.

Lt-Colonel Arthur Cumming, Commander of the 2/12th Frontier Force Regiment, Indian Army. In Kuantan, Malaya in 1942, Japanese soldiers attacked his battalion. Despite two bayonet wounds, led successful counter-attack. Wounded in heavy fire as he collected isolated detachments of men.

Lt William Dick-Cunyngham, Gordon Highlanders, born Prestonfield. Inspired faltering men during an attack on the Sherpur Pass, Afghanistan, 1879, by charging alone into enemy fire.

Pvt James Davis, 42nd Regiment, born in Canongate. At Fort Ruhya, India, 1858, offered to carry the body of a dead lieutenant back to the regiment.

Lt Robert Digby-Jones, Corps of Royal Engineers, at Wagon Hill, Ladysmith in South Africa, 1900. re-occupied a hill just as three leading Boers reached the summit.

Lt James Dundas, Bengal Engineers. At Dewan-Giri, Bhootan, India, in 1865 he climbed a 14ft wall and crawled through a 2ft-wide opening to reach around 200 enemy soldiers barricaded in a blockhouse.

Lt John Graham of the 9th Bn, The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. At Istabulat, Mesopotamia, 1917, despite two wounds, insisted on carrying ammunition and operated his gun with fearsome accuracy.

Sergeant-Major John Grieve, 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys), from Musselburgh. In Balaclava, Crimea, 1857, saved life of a Heavy Brigade officer, cutting the head off one Russian and dispersing others.

Surgeon Anthony Home, from Dunbar, 90th Regiment. 1857, Lucknow, India, protected wounded men from attack for more than 22 hours.

Lt William Hope, 7th Regiment. Sebastopol, Crimea, 1855, twice braved open fire to rescue an injured adjutant.

Cpt William Johnston, born Leith, 59th Field Coy, Corps of Royal Engineers. On River Aisne, Missy, France, 1914, worked two rafts with his own hands, returning with wounded from one side and taking back ammunition, while continuously under fire.

Lt Allan Ker, 3rd Bn, The Gordon Highlanders. In St Quentin, France, 1918, used a single Vickers gun to hold up the attack, inflicting many casualties. Surrendered only when out of ammunition and the situation hopeless. Single-handed, he held 500 of the enemy off for three hours.

Lance-Corporal John Mackay, 1st Bn, The Gordon Highlanders. Crow's Nest Hill, Johannesburg, 1900, repeatedly rushed forward under fire at short range to attend to wounded comrades.

Pvt John McDougall, 44th Regiment, born Old Town. Taku Forts, China, 1860, joined two others to swim through ditches to become the first British troops to mount the Fort walls.

Lt David McGregor from Craigs Road, Corstorphine, 6th Bn The Royal Scots. 1918 at Hoogemolen, Belgium, used his own body to successfully protect guns concealed on a limber from enemy fire. Killed in action later that day.

Cpl James McPhie, 416th (Edinburgh) Field Coy, Corps of Royal Engineers, born Rose Street, Edinburgh. In 1918, assisted troops to cross a floating bridge at the Canal de la Sensee near Aubencheul-au-Bac, France, under shell fire when it began to sink. Attempted vital repairs before being fatally wounded.

 

 

Pvt William Reynolds, Scots (Fusilier) Guards. At Battle of the Alma, Crimea in 1854, gallantly rallied the men round the Colours.

Commander Henry Ritchie, Royal Navy, of Melville Gardens, Edinburgh. On board HMS Goliath in command of the search and demolition operations at Dar-es-Salaam, Tanganyika in 1914 when wounded eight times in 20 minutes. Carried on until fainting from loss of blood. Died at home in Craigroyston House, Davidson's Mains in 1958.

Pvt Same (John) Shaw, 3rd Bn, The Rifle Brigade, from Prestonpans, East Lothian. 1858 at Lucknow, India, confronted and killed an armed rebel, sustaining a sabre wound.

 Quartermaster-Sergeant John Simpson, 42nd Regiment, born Edinburgh. 1858 at Fort Ruhya, India, twice went out under heavy fire to rescue wounded men.

Lt Harcus Strachan, from Bo'ness, served Fort Garry Horse, Canadian Expeditionary Force. Assumed command from dead squadron-leader at Masnieres, France, 1917, leading men through enemy machine gun and killing seven gunners with his sword.

Lance-Corporal Alexander Thompson, 42nd Regiment, born Tolbooth. Fort Ruhya, India, 1858, volunteered to retrieve the body of a lieutenant.

Pvt George Wilson, 2nd Bn, The Highland Light Infantry. 1914, Verneuill, France, located a German machine-gun by shooting six of the enemy and bayoneting the officer.

Cpt David Reginald Younger, 1st Bn, The Gordon Highlanders. Krugersdorp, South Africa, 1900, braved fire to drag an artillery wagon under cover. A later attempt to bring in the guns cost him his life.

 

GEORGE CROSS

John Alexander Fraser was Assistant Attorney General (Colonial Service) in Hong Kong, serving with the British Army Aid Group when the Japanese invaded in 1941. He was interned in the Civil Internment Camp in Stanley and immediately organised escape plans and a clandestine wireless service for his fellow prisoners. Despite being subjected to prolonged torture he refused to utter one word. Unable to break his spirit, the Japanese executed him on October 29, 1943.

David George Montagu Hay, later Marquess of Tweeddale, from Gifford, East Lothian, was serving on SS Eurylochus when it was sunk by an enemy raider 600 miles off Sierra Leone in 1941. He managed to reach a liferaft but - despite sharks infested waters - he dived back in to rescue a radio officer and survived.

Archibald Young, a chartered accountant, was working at Curtis & Harvey Ltd, an explosives factory at Roslin in 1916 when an explosion tore through the building. Aware that four girls were inside, Young and two colleagues defied the risk of explosion to rescue the occupants.

Eric Watt-Bonar, Flight Sergeant RAF (Voluntary Reserve), originally from Edinburgh, was based at a small airfield in Eccles in 1932 when an aircraft crashed and caught fire. From underneath the protection of an asbestos blanket, he unfastened the pilot's straps, released him and dragged him from the burning wreckage before administering first aid.

 

*This was written a while ago now, so it is entirely likely that the figures for medal holders has changed since then. Apologies and perhaps one day I'll get around to updating those figures.
Edinburgh Evening News 3 December 2002
Scotsman Publications.

Heroes went Forth to beat Germans

THE scene is a boy's bedroom above a busy pub, a stone's throw from the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
Young Ferg Handley is turning the pages of his favourite comic, eyes darting between pictures and story, imagination lost in a bloody war fought and won before he was born, brought vividly to life between the pages of his favourite Commando comic.
Inside titles such as Walk - or Die!, Hellfire Landing and Hun Bait lurked Nazis called Wolfgang and Herman, armed with Karabiner 98 Kurz machine guns yelling "Achtung!" and "Die British!" before a well placed bullet finished them off.
There'd be thrilling tales of high drama, risk, a few hand-grenade explosions and a bit of comic relief. Tommy might have shouted "Aaargh, I'm HIT" once or even twice but eventually he'd march home, victory ringing in his ears.
"The Second World War was part of my growing up," recalls Ferg. "I read these comics years after it had ended but at the same time my dad had served in Bomber Command in the Second World War, with more than 1000 hours flying time to his name.
"My parents and grandparents would speak about people having been evacuated during the war.
"They'd talk about rationing and how my mum queued for three hours and came back with a banana only for my uncle to take one look at it and announce he didn't want it.
"So the war, although in the past, wasn't really that far away."
Today the war is, of course, much further in the past. Ferg is 47, he might have been expected to have outgrown those days of war stories and be using his MA in politics, pushing his pen in a sterile office somewhere.
Instead he's still flicking through copies of Commando. The only difference is he's the one telling the stories.
As one of Commando's regular writers since 1996, Ferg has hundreds of tales of British derring-do to his credit.
But it's his most recent that is closest to home.
Divided Aces was published yesterday, a high-octane action tale inspired by the real-life drama in the skies above the Firth of Forth, 71 years ago.
It was 1939, RAF 603 Squadron - founded in 1925 as something of a hobby flying club for well-heeled city gents - had been embodied into the RAF and placed on a war footing for the first time in its history.
Its motto was the Doric "Gin ye Daur" (If You Dare), many of the pilots nicknamed their planes after their home city - names like Portobello, Auld Reekie and Corstorphine. The last thing they expected on October 16, 1939, was a German
raid.
Nine German aircraft took Scottish air defence by surprise as they roared over the Forth towards the Royal Navy base at Rosyth.
Their audacious raid left three boats damaged - HMS Southampton and two cruisers, HMS Mohawk and HMS Edinburgh - 16 Royal Navy crew dead, 44 wounded.
Startled members of 603 Squadron were scrambled from their Turnhouse base. Likewise, 602 City of Glasgow Squadron were raised from Drem in East Lothian.
Eventually, they shot down two Heinkels into the Firth of Forth and a bomber off May Island - the first enemy aircraft to be shot down over Britain.
Ferg came across their remarkable - and often neglected - tale as he researched background for other Commando tales to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.
"I'd read a book about the Battle of Britain and it gave me some ideas for Commando stories," recalls Ferg, of Willowbrae. "But all the action seemed to be set in the south of England.
"I knew there had to have been action further north, but there was not a lot of literature about it.
"Then I started to really look at it and I figured that there was definitely enough material for a story."
The facts from 1939 merged with a fictional story around a central character who - like Ferg - returns to Edinburgh after a spell away to rediscover the city of his youth.
"I was born in southern England," he explains. "We moved here when I was three so there was some stick about my English background.
"It was only after I returned here after living in London for 15 years that I started to appreciate what a wonderful and inspiring city it is."
Divided Aces is just the latest of around 300 Commando comic stories he's penned. When he's not tackling the Germans or the Japanese in Commando, he's Spider-Man - Ferg has been publisher Panini's sole writer for the superhero for the past three years and, for one story, brought the webbed one to Edinburgh. Once he created an X-Men story - plonking them in the depths of Dumfries.
Yet controlling the destiny of superheroes and battle-scarred soldiers was never his original career plan.
"I was doing an MA in politics but by the time my course was finishing I was pretty scunnered with it all," he recalls.
"I started to think about whether I might have a career in writing."
Those childhood days spent immersed in his comics flooded back.
"I knew there was this big underground scene, that comics like Dark Knight Returns and Watchman and V for Vendetta were adult stuff.
"I thought I'd like to do a graphic novel. The problem was how to do it."
He learned how to write in comic script form - a laborious process that involves writing everything from the cartoon characters' dialogue to descriptions of scenes for the artist.
With the Commando comics, comes a requirement too for fine historic detail and research.
In Divided Aces, the attention to detail is meticulous.
"I went for the most familiar images, partly because it's easier to get references for the artist. I wanted to depict the beauty of Edinburgh, to suggest that it was so important to protect the city.
"Pretty much all of the landmarks I scripted made it into the artwork. Jose Maria Jorge, the artist, is Spanish and got so many small details in - like iron railings missing from a school playground, melted down for the war effort."
Divided Aces is one of four new adventures which marks the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, and although Commando comics is heading for its own 50th anniversary next year, Ferg believes it will be around for years to come.
"Several factors account for the British fascination for the war," he says. "We were on the winning side, which makes it a popular slice of history. It's why there are so many films, dramas and books. Commando taps into all that."
• Commando: Divided Aces is available now, £1.35.
Additional reporting by Liam Rudden

Published Edinburgh Evening News, 16 September 2010.

Secrets of the Forth stir memories for war child Joan

10 September 2010

IT must have been exciting for the young table maid as she made her way north from her home in Devon to Scotland, bound for work in the fine Murrayfield mansion of a local well-to-do family.
It was a Saturday in 1926, and 25-year-old Mary Gooding had paid a whole £1 for her one-way, second-class cruise on board the SS Royal Fusilier, a 2.1 tonne steamship berthed in Wapping in preparation for the voyage to Leith.

On board this fine vessel - which was described at the time as a "miniature liner", with her grand fittings and impressive fixtures - was chief engineer Archie "Nobby" Clark.

Ten years older than Mary, he'd already seen the world as a merchant seaman. Now 35, his thoughts had turned to settling down, the London-Leith "commute" less challenging than the Atlantic routes he was used to sailing.

As the Royal Fusilier steamed northwards, somewhere between the Thames and the Forth, the chief engineer and the table maid met.

Their destiny was sealed.

Love may have bloomed on the Royal Fusilier, but there would be no romantic end for this fine vessel. Today she lies embedded in the mud, 46m below the surface of the Forth.

According to those divers determined to endure the chill of the estuary waters, she is tipped on to her port side, brass portholes still shimmering slightly in the murky water, her surface well preserved and home to colonies of marine growth.

A few miles away lies the broken remains of her almost identical "sister" ship, the SS Royal Archer, scattered across the sea bed some 15 miles west of May Island.

Stablemates in the London and Edinburgh Shipping Company, war with Germany transformed them into Merchant Navy workhorses, ferrying cargo between Scotland and England's capital cities, gum and paste for manufacturing, paper and that most crucial wartime commodity, food.

To be on board one when it was sunk by a Nazi attack would be bad enough.

Yet Archie, with his unsuspecting wife Mary and their daughter Joan waiting at home in Leith, ended up fighting for his life on both.

Incredibly the loss of the vessels just months apart did not even merit a mention in newspapers at the time.


Understandably, though, they dominated the childhood memories of Archie's daughter Joan Woodburn, now 79.

Now thanks to another quirk of fate, her vivid recollections of the Fusilier's unique role in bringing her parents together and both vessels' dramatic demise, are helping bring wartime history to life.

Tomorrow she will be a special guest of honour at Trinity House museum in Leith, where maritime history experts will explore the fates of the Forth's many wrecks as part of Scottish Archaeology Month.

Historic Scotland's maritime unit will reveal footage of a sonar survey of the Firth's most famous wreck, HMS Campania - one of Cunard's first great liners which sunk in 1918 - and a Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber.

Movingly for Joan, they'll also unveil recent underwater photography of the Royal Archer.

It will be a poignant event for the pensioner who spent years searching for two striking models of the vessels which she graphically recalled from her childhood, only to finally find them just a few miles away from her Portobello home, at Trinity House.

"I always remembered these huge models of the Fusilier and the Archer from when I was a little girl," says Joan, of Bryce Avenue.

"My mother would go to the shipping company offices in Bernard Street to pick up my father's wages and they were there. They were beautifully made, big with lots of detail and I loved to look at them because they reminded me of my father.

"When the offices closed, I always wondered what had happened to them."

Joan had given up hope of ever setting eyes on them again until last year when she popped into Trinity House for its open day.

"I walked in and, oh my goodness, there was the Archer," she says. "When I walked upstairs I found the Fusilier too.

"I'd been looking for years, and there they were."

Becoming reacquainted with the two vessels after so many years reopened poignant memories of when, as a little girl, she waved her dad off to serve on the Fusilier and the Archer.

The outbreak of war had transformed the glamorous liners into Merchant Navy workhorses, a far cry from the days when they'd cater for passengers in plush surroundings, serving breakfast for three shillings, dinner for four.

As war raged, Joan and her mother often had no idea where Archie might be. Which made his arrival on the doorstep of their home at 206 Leith Walk one bitter February evening in 1940, dishevelled and barely dressed, all the more disturbing.

"Of course there were no telephones, so we didn't know his ship had gone down," recalls Joan. "We heard a taxi outside, which was unusual enough. Then out he walked.

"He was wrapped in a blanket, wearing just long johns and shoes that didn't fit - he'd lost everything when the ship went down
"He'd been in Leith hospital, checked over and just sent home."

Her father had been on board the Archer, loaded with a cargo of gum and paste bound for Leith, when the blast from an underwater mine ripped through her bow.

The explosion destroyed three of her lifeboats and engulfed the wireless room in steam from burst pipes.

The captain frantically ordered three remaining lifeboats to be launched only for one to capsize, throwing the ship's quartermaster overboard.

Unable to swim, he drifted towards the damaged bow of the vessel, supported by his lifejacket.

In chaos, the remaining 28 crew, including Archie, struggled to launch the remaining lifeboats, pausing to rescue two stricken colleagues on the way.

The Royal Archer's demise was rapid - just 30 minutes after the explosion had occurred, she was gone. There was little time for recuperation for her crew either. Joan recalls her father being sent back to sea almost immediately.

This time he returned to the vessel which held such fond memories - the Royal Fusilier.

She was ferrying a cargo of rice and paper from London to Leith in June 1941 - an easy target for the German aircraft hunting for their prey along the east coast.

She was seven miles east of Amble in Northumberland when she was bombed.

As she began to list, the crew of 15 piled into lifeboats only to be told to return to the vessel while it was towed north by one of two destroyers in the area.

Seven miles north east of the Bass Rock, she could go no further and capsized.

Hugh Morrison, Collections Registrar for Historic Scotland, who runs the museum, says Joan's links with the two vessels has been invaluable in helping bring history to life.

"It is fantastic to have someone like Joan present who can bring the personal story to life of those who lived and served on some of Leith's most famous vessels," he says.

"We are delighted that she will be here this weekend to share her story with visitors."

The Trinity House, Secrets of the Forth, Archaeology Day takes place on Saturday. Entry is free.