Attention!

Alerted last night by a Lost Glasgow follower, about damage to the Highland Light Infantry memorial in Kelvingrove Park, this morning, I dispatched a patrol, in the shape of my snapper mate Bill, to recce the situation.

What he reported, and photographed, makes my blood boil with fury. Some bastards appears to have taken a hammer or some such to ‘our’ memorial, the tribute to all the HLI men who fought and fell in the Boer Wars, hacking off the feet and smashing the facial features.

The pair of vandals ran off, at around 11.30pm on Tuesday, after being caught in the act by a dog walker.

I’ve loved the statue, erected by the dead men’s friends and comrades, since I was a wee boy.

It’s bad enough that bits of the city fall into dereliction and disrepair without some cowardly buggers launching an attack on a little piece of public beauty. This is an attack on us all.

The War Memorials online site describes the statue thus:



“The monument depicts a soldier or army scout of the HLI straddling a rocky eminence and is memorable both for his jaunty pose and for the attention given to the costume detail.

This freestone memorial by sculptor William Birnie Rhind (1853-1933) is the earliest war memorial in Kelvingrove Park and was erected to commemorate men of the Highland Light Infantry who fell in the South African ‘Boer’ War (1899-1902). Possibly the most unrestrained of Birnie Rhind’s work, the lowest stage comprises loose boulders which graduate into a rock-faced ashlar ‘outcrop’ bearing commemorative inscriptions on the east and west sides, before rising again into more naturalistic rockwork.

“The association with the Highland Light Infantry is meaningful as volunteer regiments drilled regularly in Kelvingrove Park into the early 20th century.”

During the Peninsular War of the early 1800s, the forerunners of the regiment – the 71st & 74th Highlanders, raised in 1777 and 1778 - earned the nickname ‘The Glesga Keelies’ and were much-feared by their French adversaries. During one engagement, the Glasgow men saw the enemy off the field, with their officer shouting a battle cry of: ‘Chase them doon the Gallowgate, boys!’

I hope the scum who committed this attack on Glasgow bump into some former members of ‘Hell’s Last Issue’. I’m pretty sure they’d teach them a lesson in honour, respect, and good manners that they wouldn’t forget!