22-04-2025
Story of Ayrshire farmers who served in First World War told in new book
Boswell's Galloping Farmers, the nickname for the Ayrshire Yeomanry, served in one of deadliest battles in the First World War.
Exactly 110 years ago in the early part of First World War the battle of Gallipoli was the first amphibious operation in modern warfare.
In an effort to take Turkey out of the war and open up access to Russia troops from the British Empire (most notably Australia and New Zealand) and France landed on the peninsula in the Dardanelles Straits with disastrous consequences for the Allies.
Amongst those sent out were Boswell's Galloping Farmers, the nickname for the Ayrshire (Earl of Carrick's own) Yeomanry, a volunteer cavalry regiment who retrained as grenadier infantry. These men quite literally had to learn on the job, and did so with honour and distinction.
A book with the accounts from four of these men has been published by the Ayrshire Archaeological and Natural History Society and the editor, Rob Close, will be taking part in the Boswell Book Festival on Friday, May 9.
This book allows the men to speak in their own voices as they recount what they experienced and their own opinions on both the war and this one campaign during which so many of the colleagues on the battlefield died.
In the lead up to his appearance, Rob said: 'I am particularly interested in ensuring that voices from the past in all spheres are made more accessible.
'Another recent publication by the society, The Diaries of Thomas McClelland, was an annotated transcription of diaries from the 1790s, with some otherwise unknowable details of life in Ayr at that time.
'Making material such as that produced by Sandy Barclay and the other farmers as well as that of McClelland is, I think, hugely important.
"I am looking forward to appearing at the Boswell Book Festival's first event alongside Gillian Hope, granddaughter of one of the Sanquhar Boys who joined the Seaforth Highlands to fight in the war.'
