Gordon Highlanders WWI

[Farmer Jones]

During WWI it was common for soldiers and sailors to keep cats as mascots. I imagine it helped with the mouse problem. This photograph of soldiers of 9th Battalion Gordon Highlanders with their cat was taken at Pas-de-Calais, France on 25 August 1916.

[kiltedtom]

As a historian, I cannot help but wonder what the lives of those soldiers in the picture were like. And whether or not that cat still had all of his nine lives left at the end of the war.

Tom

[Farmer Jones]

As a historian, I cannot help but wonder what the lives of those soldiers in the picture were like. And whether or not that cat still had all of his nine lives left at the end of the war.

Tom

I have also contemplated how their lives were. I suspect that even out of the trenches many of us would now would find life difficult. When I look at the images I collect, I frequently think about all the practicalities. I do not like to think of the probable fate of the cat.

[kiltedtom]

How true. But with 98 years passing since that photo was taken, I hope that everyone there, cat included, had long, happy lives with peaceful endings.

Tom

[georgeetta]

Uncle David and Uncle Tommy Youngson were in Gordons in WW1 out of Aberdeen .

Tommy was wounded in hand by grenade and DAV .

th
dave

other 2 uncles were in Malaya on jungle patrol in 50's .

I'd like a Gordon kilt some day .

the new cheapos look like test patterns or road signs ..