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Friday, 3rd September 2010

 
1900-2000
Life changed in North East Fife with two World Wars

NORTH East Fife in general, and Cupar and St Andrews in particular, were doing very nicely by the turn of the century. As the Victorian era gave way to the Edwardians, the respective death of venerable Queen Victoria in 1901 and accession to the throne of Prince Edward were mourned and celebrated with equal vigour and there were similar scenes yet again in 1910, following the death of Edward and accession of King George. The towns continued to expand, according to the census of 1911, which revealed that the population of Cupar was a substantial 4380, while the burgh acreage was an impressive 540. The population of St Andrews was even greater at 7851. In fact, the years before the First World War, while not halcyon-like for all, certainly appeared to be good for the majority of the residents according to photographs and articles which were appearing annually in the Fife News Almanacs. In 1913, St Andrews’ West Sands became a popular landing point for early aviationists from Montrose with many aircraft visiting the town during that summer, including the first ‘‘hydro’’ or float aeroplane which landed in the sea off the Sands and was photographed for posterity. Cupar also saw its share of aircraft, one Captain McLean of the Royal Flying Corps making a safe landing near Crawford Priory in October, 1913, after encountering thick mist en route from Ireland to Montrose! The horrors of the First World War were making a tangible impact in North East Fife by 1915, the columns of the Fife Herald and Journal - described by one contemporary literary man as ‘‘the best local weekly with which I am acquainted’’ - filled with obituaries. The Almanac of 1916 led with an illustrated article on the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart MP, of Falkland. The 32-year-old peer and Member of Parliament for Cardiff was killed in action on October 3, 1915, while leading the 6th Battalion of the Welsh Territorial Regiment in a night attack on the Hohenzollern Redoubt, near La Bassee. Around the same time, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres - then in his 40s and who unveiled the Bannockburn Memorial at Ceres in June 1914 - was reported to be serving as a Lance-Corporal with the Royal Army Medical Corps in France! A duplicate of the Colwick Sugar Factory at Nottingham was planned for Cupar towards the end of 1920s. A deputation of farmers from Fife and other counties had visited the factory and examined working practices prior to the Cupar installation being erected by the Second Anglo-Scottish Beet Sugar Corporation Ltd., at Prestonhall, on the eastern outskirts of the town. Cost was £300,000. The Cupar factory finally closed in the early 1970s The year 1936 was issued in with national sorrow following the death of King George V at Sandringham on January 20, after having reigned for 25 years. He was succeeded by King Edward V111, the proclamation being made with all due pomp and ceremony at Cupar’s Mercat Cross and St Andrews’ Market Street which were crowded by townsfolk and villagers. Distinguished naval officer, Commander the Honourable Archibald Cochrane, R.N. (retired), was appointed governor of Burma in February 1936, and within a few of weeks of his appointment was subsequently knighted by King Edward. Sir Archibald, the second son of Lord and Lady Cochrane of Cults, Crawford Priory, entered the Navy in 1901 and served as a submarine commander in the First World War, was captured and escaped in 1918. He retired from the Navy in 1921 and, three years later, became Unionist MP for East Fife. Defeated in 1929, he went on to represent Dumbartonshire from 1932 until his appointment as Governor. Engineers were busy constructing a new road bridge over the River Eden at Guardbridge in 1936, although the structure it would replace was to be retained for pedestrians. Estimated to cost a total of £43,200, the new bridge was described as ‘‘the most important project undertaken in East Fife for many years.’’ The work, due to be completed by the following autumn, included removing the old toll house at the corner of the Cupar and Leuchars roads. Civic improvements in Cupar included the provision of much-needed children’s play equipment at the Cart Haugh and Duffus Parks, and in 1937 the town could boast the best equipped hospital in any town of its size following the opening of the new extensions at Adamson Hospital on June 10. Opened as a small cottage hospital in 1904, the Adamson owed its growth chiefly to the generosity of Mr and Mrs J.B. Crichton, of Luthriebank, whose gifts in 1937 were the nurses’ home and a new wing adjacent to it. The cost of rearmament was also being felt by the North East Fifers, a fact which the Fife News Almanac of 1937 said was ‘‘regretted but necessary, if we are not to be at the mercy of predatory nations.’’ Sure enough, war came in 1939 and local people flocked to join all branches of the armed services, seeing action in all the major theatres of the Second World War. Many local men saw service with the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry and The Scottish Horse. The former raised in 1794 to meet the French threat of the Napoleonic Wars and the latter raised by the Marquis of Tullibardine in South Africa in 1900, from local Scotsmen. Both regiments had served with distinction in the First World War in Gallipoli, Egypt, Palestine and on the Western Front in France. Afterwards, the Fife and Forfar became one of the first Yeomanry regiments to be mechanized and served as the 20th Armoured Car Company, while the Scottish Horse were retained as Scouts. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Scouts were fully mounted with 600 horses and mobilised at Dunkeld in September 1939. In April the following year they were formed into two regiments of Medium Artillery and served in Africa, Sicily, Italy and the battles of North West Europe, continuing to wear the Atholl Bonnet marking their close association with the Atholl Highlanders. During the war, the regiment won a Distinguished Service Order, 14 Military Crosses, an OBE, seven MBEs, two Distinguished Conduct Medals, 19 Military Medals and 83 Mentions in Despatches. The Fife and Forfar were mobilized with other Yeomanry regiments before the war started and were the first Scottish regiment to produce a second line. The 1st Regiment went to France in January 1940 with the 51st Highland Division, and was evacuated from Dunkirk with the British Expeditionary Force. Afterwards, both regiments trained for the invasion. The 1st Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel W.G.N. Walker, was one of the few flame-throwing tank regiments and its three squadrons supported the British, Canadian and American armies respectively. The 2nd Regiment landed in France on D Day plus 10 and fought continuously until the end of the war, when its troops were on the Baltic. When the Territorial Army was reformed in 1947, The Scottish Horse was converted to armour and became the Armoured Regiment of the 51st Highland Division, with headquarters at Dunkeld. The Fife and Forfar, disbanded after the war, reformed as an Armoured Car Regiment in May 1947 under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Gilmour, grandson of the commanding officer of 1895, and had its headquarters in Cupar where they had first been in 1797. The Horse and Fife and Forfar subsequently amalgamated and became known as The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry/Scottish Horse (T.A.). View older pages
 
 

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