Historic day for the Gordon Highlanders regiment as memorial is to be unveiled at the National Memorial Arboretum

A MAJOR achievement will be marked next weekend by the Gordon Highlander Association.

A Gordon Highlander Memorial will be dedicated at the National Memorial Arboretum (NMA) marking the achievement of a goal which Gordon Highlander veterans from across the north east and regimental area have been working towards for a long time.

Regimental secretary, Major Grenville Irvine-Fortescue DL said: "The siting and dedication of this memorial at The National Memorial Arboretum will be the last occasion of its kind for The Gordon Highlanders.

"The Regiment has magnificent memorials across the north east, but the National Memorial Arboretum is a very special and a remarkable place of Remembrance for so many. Our veterans were very clear about the importance of a memorial there for The Gordon Highlanders and we are all hugely proud that this has at last been achieved. It really is the culmination of a very successful project.’’

Gordon Highlander veterans from around the UK will gather at the NMA next Saturday and the memorial will be formally unveiled by Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenants from the shires of the North East of Scotland where the Regiment recruited the majority of its soldiers across its 200 year history .

A dedication service will be led by the senior army chaplain for Scotland, Reverend Duncan Macpherson CF and wreaths will be laid in memory of those of the regiment who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

A regimental gathering will follow the service and the day will end with a Beating Retreat by the Pipes and Drums of The London Scottish Regiment, with whom The Gordon Highlanders have a close affiliation stretching back to the Boer War.

It was in October 2017 that the project to establish the memorial began.

During 2018 the style, design and material it should be made from were determined and a sculptor found.

Major Bob Donald TD, a trustee with a lifetime commitment to art and design had prepared a draft design of the proposed memorial.

His thinking was that it needed to be created from a material that would last, it should not be too big, but large enough to ‘make a statement’ and be clearly identifiable with the Gordon Highlanders.

He drew attention to groups of standing stones in the Regimental area of Aberdeenshire and also the design of the 51st Highland Division Memorial at St Valery-en-Caux, saying that it made a statement because it was hewn from stone that came from the same place that the soldiers did and like them was transported to another land to commemorate them.

Trustees supported Major Donald’s proposal and agreed that the memorial should be a single stone, in the style of a Celtic stone, but made, ideally, from locally sourced granite.

The cap badge was to be cut in relief and the inscription carved into the granite.

At the same time the inscription was also agreed.

In March 2019 The Speyside Sculptor, Stuart Murdoch, whose workshop is near the River Spey and Ben Rinnes was commissioned.

But it soon became clear that finding a suitable piece of local granite that was large enough and of the right shape was going to be difficult.

Mr Murdoch found some very large field stones on the nearby Ballindalloch estate and invited the Trustees to view them as a possible alternative to granite.

One of the field stones, Dalradian Psammite, was the right height and also had a suitably flat facing surface to allow the carving of the cap badge and the inscription.

Carving began in the winter of 2019 and continued into the Spring of 2020 and completed by the end of April.

Trustees viewed the memorial before it was transported to the NMA in Staffordshire and safely installed on June 26 last year.

On Saturday, August 15, the 75th Anniversary of VJ Day, the regiment's Colonel in Chief, His Royal Highness The Duke of Rothesay, led the Nation’s VJ Day tribute from the NMA and although there are no surviving Far East Gordon Highlander veterans it was another opportunity to remember the extraordinary sacrifice by so many.

At the end of the official commemorations, His Royal Highness attended a private viewing of The Gordon Highlander Memorial and laid a wreath in what was a great honour for the Regiment as His Royal Highness will not be at the unveiling and dedication ceremony.

The National Memorial Arboretum comprises 150 acres, planted with over 25,000 trees and accommodates around 400 memorials. It is located at Alrewas in Staffordshire.