I recently wrote about Robert Tait McKenzie, the sculptor of the Scots American War Memorial. While researching for that blog I read that the inscription below the figure of the Infantryman reads.
“If it be life that waits, I shall live forever unconquered, if death, I shall die, at last, strong in my pride and free.”
These are words from a poem called 'A Creed' written at Vimy Ridge in 1916 by Lieutenant E. Alan Mackintosh M.C. (1893-1917) of the 5th Seaforth Highlanders, 51st Highland Division. That meant something to me as I was born and brought up in Sutherland in the Highlands, home to the 1/5th (Sutherland & Caithness) Battalion Seaforth Highlanders, and relatives and many people I knew served and fought with the Seaforths.
In 1961 the Seaforth Highlanders merged with the Queens Own Cameron Highlanders and they became the Queens Own Highlanders. Further amalgamation followed when the Queens Own Highlanders merged with the Gordon Highlanders in 1994 and The Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons and Camerons) were formed, and since 2006 they have been known as The Highlanders, 4th Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland (4 SCOTS).
As a teenager in the mid 70’s I was a Queens Own Highlanders Army Cadet and a member of their pipe band. We proudly wore MacKenzie tartan kilts as worn by the Seaforth Highlanders and their cap badge with a Crown between the stag’s antlers.
Why do I specifically mention the stag’s head? Cabar Feidh, the Regimental March of the Seaforth Highlanders, which we played every time we performed translates from Gaelic to “the antler of the deer”. Cabar Feigh Gu Brath was the Regimental Toast of the Queens Own Highlanders and hopefully you will enjoy reading it and the recording I have found of the Queens Own Highlanders Association playing the tune at the Cameron Barracks, Inverness in 2010. As cadets we practiced it many times there under the expert tuition of Pipe Major Andrew Venters, Queens Own Highlanders, whose unmistakable proud figure I see marching past closest to the camera in the front rank at 01.00. Maybe we might even hear it played at WTTR 2013 as we read the words of Lieutenant E. Alan Mackintosh M.C. while remembering and thinking about our troops past and present.
The land of hills, glens and heroes;
Where the Ptarmigan thrives
And where the red deer find shelter.
As long as the mist hangs o’er the mountains
And water runs in the glens,
The deeds of the brave will be remembered.
Health and success for ever
To the lads of “Cabar Feidh”
Cabar Feidh Gu Brath
