Cameron & QO Hldrs
Douglas died at Inverness on 15 June 2017, aged 84. 

He was born in Fyzabad, in India, on 4 September 1932, while his father was serving with the 1^st Camerons.  Educated at Winchester College, he enlisted in The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders in 1951.  At the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he passed out in 3^rd place out of 231 cadets, winning the Infantry Prize.  He was commissioned on 6 February 1953, the fourth generation of his family to serve as a Regular officer in the Cameron Highlanders. 

He served with the 1^st Camerons in Austria, Lüneburg, Elgin and Korea.  When HM The Queen presented new Colours to the 1^st Camerons at Balmoral Castle in 1955, he was one of the Ensigns who carried the Old Colours off parade. In 1956 he became ADC to General Sir Horatius Murray, GOC-in-C Scottish Command, in Edinburgh.  In 1958-1959 he was Adjutant of the Depot of The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders at Cameron Barracks, returning to the 1^st Camerons in Redford Barracks as the last Adjutant of the battalion before the amalgamation with the Seaforth Highlanders in 1961. 

As the first Adjutant of 1^st Bn Queen’s Own Highlanders he served in Edinburgh and Singapore.  He attended the Staff College, Camberley in 1962-1963, and was then appointed GSO 2 (SD) in the Ministry of Defence.  He served as a company commander with the 1^st Gordons in Minden, and in 1969 returned to the staff as DAA&QMG of 12 Infantry Brigade in Osnabrück.  In 1971 he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and appointed to Command of the Scottish Infantry Depot, Bridge of Don until 1974. 

He then held a series of senior staff appointments as AQMG HQ UKLF at Wilton, Colonel AQ 1^st Division in Verden, Deputy Commander/Assistant Military Attaché of the British Army Staff in Washington DC, and finally as Chief of Staff, HQ Scotland in Edinburgh.  He retired from the Army in 1987.  He subsequently held a Retired Officer’s appointment running the MOD estate on Salisbury Plain Training Area for ten years.

After returning to the Highlands to live at his family’s house at Lettoch, North Kessock he played a full part in the regimental community, as Convener of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders Regimental Association, as a Regimental Association Trustee, and as Chairman of the Cameron Highlanders Officers Dinner Club. 

In 1959 he married Miss Richenda Pelly, and they celebrated their Golden Wedding in 2009.  She survives him, with their son and three daughters. 

QO Hldrs
Steve (Kia) passed away on 11 June 2017.

Steve Kiakowski, better known as “Kia” joined the Infantry Junior Leaders Battalion (IJLB), Oswestry in September 1967 as an Argyll and Sutherland Highlander, but re-badged whilst he was there to the Queen’s Own Highlanders when the Argyll’s numbers starting to get cut.  It was at Oswestry that he learned to excel at canoeing, later passing his skills to so many others. 

He subsequently passed out of Oswestry in late 1969 to join the 1^st Battalion in Edinburgh as a member of the Rear Party whilst the Battalion went on post-Sharjah leave.  He soon joined 6 Platoon, B Company and was promoted to Lance Corporal in 1971.  On his initial tour in Northern Ireland he was based in the Short Strand district of East Belfast and made his first find whilst stopping a car on a routine patrol in Lisburn Street – a group of men acting suspiciously, one 5 lb bomb, and a loaded .38” revolver later! 

Kia spent time with the Recce Platoon and other sub units within the Battalion, but always seemed to return to the “Bonny B”.  He served in the UK, BAOR, Northern Ireland, Belize, and Hong Kong.

He was demobbed after Hong Kong and went on to marry his wife, Eleanor, and become father to his two sons, Kevin and Steven.  In Civvy Street he started work in Fountain Park Brewery before taking on various jobs as a joiner.  He unfortunately fell off some scaffolding whilst at work and became physically disabled in the 1990’s.  In July 2016 he was diagnosed with neck and throat cancer and sadly passed away on the 11 June 2017

Kia always excelled on operations, or on exercise in the field, but was one of those characters who got bored whilst in barracks and whose stripes were best sewn on with Velcro – he would have wanted it no other way!  He was a real character and good all-round soldier.  He will be sadly missed by all who knew him.

QO Hldrs
Anne wife of Col IG Nason (CO Queen’s Own Highlanders 1977-1979) died from Cancer on 4 June 2017.

Seaforth & QO Hldrs
Wattie (Drummie) Grant passed away on 20 May 2017.

Wattie Grant was born on 29 August 1932 in Elgin.  At the age of eighteen he joined up at Fort George and was accepted into the Highland Light Infantry, but soon transferred to the Seaforth Highlanders and after amalgamation the Queen’s Own Highlanders.  He became a Drummer in the Seaforth’s Pipe Band with high hopes of following in his father’s footsteps who himself was a Drum Major.  Wattie’s first appearance in the Edinburgh Military Tattoo was as a Highland Dancer followed by many other appearances in the Tattoo over the years as Drummer and subsequently Drum Major.  He was Drum Major of both the Seaforth Highlanders and Queen’s Own Highlanders.  One of his proudest achievements was leading the massed Pipes and Drums on Horse Guards Parade at “Big Blaw” in 1971 shortly before he was demobbed.  He served in BAOR, Aden, the UK, Northern Ireland and with the Trucial Oman Scouts in the Gulf.

He married his wife Jessie in 1953 and they went on to have three children.  After leaving the army in 1972 he went to work for Scottish and Newcastle Brewery and managed several pubs around the Edinburgh area.

Wattie passed away from complications caused by his Cancer and asked that his body be donated for medical research.

Seaforth & QO Hldrs
Tommy passed away on 27 April 2017.

Tommy was born and brought up in Prestonpans, East Lothian and in 1959, at the age of 19 left the pit where he was working to join his brother, George, in the Seaforth Highlanders.  Initially stationed in Munster he was soon to move back to Edinburgh for the amalgamation of the Seaforth and Camerons to become a Queen’s Own Highlander.  He joined the Signals Platoon and was soon off to Singapore.  On return to the UK he married and went on to have four children.

After serving six years, he left to start work as a dry stane dyker in Wick.  Whilst there, he took an active interest in the Sea Cadets as an adult instructor.  He eventually returned to Prestonpans with his wife, Bertha to start work in Cockenzie power station.  Tommy, together with his brother George were regular attenders at the Edinburgh Branch of the Regimental Association and despite mobility problems in his later years, always tried to turn up to watch the Branch march on Armed Forces Days.  He was a proud Seaforth Highlander and Queen’s Own Highlander.

QO Hldrs
Benny passed away on 3 May 2017.

QO Hldrs
Paul passed away on 21 April 2017 aged 57.

Paul who served with the Queen’s Own Highlanders sadly passed away in the Marie Curie Hospice in Edinburgh on 21 April 2017 aged 57.

Paul was raised and brought up in Penicuik and after leaving school became an apprentice bookbinder.  He quickly realised however, that his future lay in becoming an army musician and subsequently signed up as a Queen’s Own Highlander.

In April 1982 he joined Salamanca Platoon at the Depot, Glencorse to carry out basic training before moving to Bridge of Don for continuation/music training.  He then joined the Battalion in Tidworth and went on to serve with the Military Band as a Cornet player in the UK, Northern Ireland, BAOR and the Gulf.  Apart from a short stint at the School of Music, Kneller Hall, where he converted from the Cornet to the French Horn, he served with and travelled all over the world with the Military Band.  In 1989, together with the rest of the Band, he was deployed to the Gulf with 1 Armoured Field Ambulance to carry out the Band’s wartime role of medics and stretcher bearers.  Indeed, it was the Band’s proud boast that they were in the field of operations during the First Gulf War before any other soldier from the Battalion had even set foot on the desert sands!

After he was demobbed in 1994, he joined the Scottish Ambulance Service as a driver supplying patient transport services.  In his later years he became a Security Administrator at Napier University.  

QO Hldrs
Bill passed away on 11 April 2017 aged 74.

LCpl Bill Donald was born in Keith on 29 August 1942 and trained as a joiner when he left school.  He subsequently joined the Queen’s Own Highlanders after passing out of the Highland Brigade Depot in April 1967 with prizes for the Best Recruit and Best Shot of Marne Squad.

He went on to join 1^st Battalion in Berlin and after some time in a duty Company became one of the Battalion’s Domestic Pioneers.  He went on to serve with the regiment in Edinburgh, Sharjah, Osnabruck and Northern Ireland.  After leaving the army in 1975 he worked as a joiner and Site Manager in the building trade. 

Cameron & QO Hldrs
Hugh (Shug) passed away on 4 April 2017.

QO Hldrs
Charlie passed away at the Highland Hospice in Inverness on 26 February 2017.

Seaforth & QO Hldrs
Roderick (Eric) passed away on 21 February 2017 aged 79.

Eric was born in 1938 in Crieff.  He joined the Royal Marines in 1954 as a musician.  In 1960 he joined the Regimental Band of the Seaforth Highlanders at Fort George and was a very welcome addition to the Band.  He was an excellent Cornet player and a very competent musician.  He served in Munster, Redford (where he became a Queen’s Own Highlander), Singapore, Fort George and Bridge of Don where he was an Instructor with the Junior Bandsmen. 

Cameron & QO Hldrs
Major John MacCallum died in Edinburgh on 17 February 2017 aged 79.

Educated at George Watson’s College and the RMA Sandhurst, he was granted a Regular Commission in The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders on 21 December 1956.  He served with the 1^st Camerons in Aden, Dover and Edinburgh.  After the Amalgamation he served with 11 KAR, returning to 1 QO HLDRSS in Osnabrück in 1964.  He was then the last Adjutant of 1^st Bn Liverpool Scottish before the reorganisation of the TA in 1967.  After staff appointments in Northumberland and Singapore he served with the 1^st Gordons as a company commander.  Seconded to the Sultan of Muscat’s Armed Forces as DAA&QMG, he was made MBE in 1974.  He later served at the Scottish Infantry Depot Bridge of Don, as DAAG HQ Lowlands, and as GSO1 (local Lt Col) with the BMM Saudi Arabia.  He was Camp Commandant HQ Scotland before retiring in 1990 to an RO’s appointment at Craigiehall.

QO Hldrs
Rab passed away on 23 January 2017. 

Seaforth
Alastair died on 13 December 2016 aged 95.

He served as a Seaforth from 1939 – 1956 and was a member of the CnR Dinner Club.

QO Hldrs
Lloyd passed away on 15 January 2017.

Lloyd was brought up in Wick, Caithness and joined the Regiment in 1965 as a trumpet player with the Military Band.  He served in Berlin, Osnabruck, Sharjah and Edinburgh.  Lloyd and his brother served together and to distinguish them both he was known by his last 2 numbers as Burt 75.

Lloyd went on to gain a commission with 1 Highlanders ACF.  He served as an Adult Instructor with Ross Company from 1989.

Cameron & QO Hldrs
Lieutenant Colonel David Murray, who died on 8 January 2017 aged 95, combined a successful career as a Regular officer in The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders (Camerons) with pre-eminence as a player and authority on the Highland bagpipe and its music, and wide-ranging knowledge of all forms of military music.  An articulate writer and speaker, blessed with an exceptional memory for both tunes and history, he did much to enhance Scotland’s extraordinary military heritage, and to save it from oblivion as Defence cuts destroyed historic regimental identities.

Born in 1921 at Kuldana, the hill station above Rawalpindi where his father was serving as an officer with the 1^st Camerons, the family returned shortly afterwards to the Regimental Depot at Inverness where he spent his early childhood.  When his father retired in 1925 to become a prison governor, the Governor’s quarter of a series of notorious prisons such as Barlinnie in Glasgow and Saughton in Edinburgh became David Murray’s home.  Educated in Edinburgh at George Watson’s College, his ambition from an early age was to play the pipes, and he was taught by two of the greatest pipers of the day, Pipe Major Robert Reid in Glasgow and Pipe Major Willie Ross at Edinburgh Castle. 

He had always hoped to become the third generation of his family to serve in the Camerons and enlisted on the outbreak of war in 1939.  After receiving his commission, he joined the 1^st Camerons shortly after the battalion returned, 79 strong, from Dunkirk and was in the process of being reinforced and re-trained.  In 1942 David Murray, having attended a mortar course, sailed with the 1^st Camerons for India where the battalion spent two years training for the planned recapture of Burma from the Japanese by seaborne landings.  In March 1944 this training was precipitately interrupted when a Japanese Division of 15,000 men emerged unexpectedly from the jungles of Burma on the frontier of India at Kohima.  The British 2^nd Division, including the 1^st Camerons, was rushed to Assam to face them. 

During the next three months the 1^st Camerons played a costly but decisive part in the intense fighting for control of the Kohima ridge.  Much of the action was at extremely close quarters, and artillery support was seldom practical.  The only effective fire support came from David Murray’s 3” mortars, and his high standards of training allowed the mortar platoon to give very close support to the Cameron companies and their patrols.  Supported by Naga porters to carry the ammunition, the mortar sections invariably provided prompt and accurate support, playing a key role in the series of actions to clear the Kohima ridge.  At the end of the subsequent advance through Burma David Murray was Mentioned in Despatches.  The Battle of Kohima was Japan’s first major defeat of the war. 

When the 1^st Camerons returned to India at the end of the campaign, and then became part of the occupation force in Japan, David Murray was appointed Adjutant of the battalion.  After post war service mainly overseas, which included a tour with the Malay Regiment, he returned to the UK in 1954 to attend the Staff College, Camberley.  His subsequent appointment as Brigade Major in Stirling brought him back to Scotland. 

David Murray fulfilled his personal ambition in a long military career in 1963 when he took command of the 4^th/5^th Camerons, the Territorial Army battalion drawn from Inverness-shire and Nairn.  Under his dynamic leadership the battalion achieved success in numerous military and sporting events and, naturally enough, in the outstanding quality of its Pipes and Drums.  After retiring from the British Army in 1967 he served for a time in Abu Dhabi, where he was responsible for establishing the military college of the United Arab Emirates at Al Ayn.  

David Murray’s rise to prominence in the piping world began in 1955 when he entered the Royal Scottish Pipers’ Society’s amateur competitions and swept the boards.  It was unprecedented to find a serving Major in the army who could play the pipes as well as the top professionals, and he was very soon in regular demand as a judge at piping competitions throughout Scotland.  He quickly gained a name both as an excellent player, and as an authority on the evolution of bagpipe music, and this reputation led to some outstanding pipers choosing to serve in the Camerons and their successors the Queen’s Own Highlanders. 

After retiring from the army, he made his home in the Borders where, within easy reach of Edinburgh, he could develop his interest in military history and music.  In the Highlands he was for twelve years the much-respected Piping Convener of the Northern Meeting, the oldest and most prestigious of all piping competitions.  As Deputy Producer of the Edinburgh Tattoo, his innovations did much to develop the high musical standards which are so evident today.  He was a strong supporter of the Army School of Piping, based in Edinburgh Castle where he had been taught the pipes as a boy.  He was President of the Piobaireachd Society, and for many years he presented a series of programmes on piping for the BBC.  With a fine pipe tune named after him, ‘Colonel DJS Murray’ became a household name. 

The culmination of his lifelong interest in military history, and perhaps his greatest legacy, came with the publication in 1994 of his book ‘Music of the Scottish Regiments’.  Widely acclaimed, it remains unique as a record of all Scotland’s famous regiments, explaining the evolution of their bands, pipes and drums, their distinctions of dress, and the eccentricities which were fundamental elements of their esprit de corps. 

He is survived by his children John Murray and Mrs Alison Corbett OBE, and by his second wife Rosemary and a step daughter.

Seaforth & QO Hldrs
Kenny Urquhart sadly passed away on 9 January 2017.

Kenny came from Prestonfield in Edinburgh and joined the Seaforth Highlanders in the 1950’s.  After amalgamation, he was posted to A Company as a Lance Corporal but was soon promoted to full Corporal.  Even at his young rank and age Kenny was good enough to captain the Battalion football team, leading them to league and cup wins in the Battalion’s very f

Kenny is therefore best remembered as one of our Battalion’s best footballers.  Indeed, as well as playing many games over the years for the Battalion, Kenny was a regular Army player, as well as turning out for Nairn County.

Kenny was demobbed in 1971 from the Depot, Glencorse, where he was posted as a Training Sergeant.  He soon settled down with his family into accommodation in Edinburgh’s High Street, before moving to Tranent.  He worked at various jobs before retirement

Kenny will be sadly missed.

Nan Macdonald

 QO Hldrs

Nan who was the wife of 24143952 Sgt J R Macdonald passed away on 6 June 2017 after a long illness.