Gretna memorial

At least twice every year (it's the BTO's fault) we find ourselves in this quiet corner of Rosebank Cemetery not long after sunrise. The Gretna memorial commemorates the soldiers from the Leith Battalion who died in the horrific train crash near Gretna in 1915.

Many bodies were never retrieved, but those that were were brought back to the Drill Hall in Dalmeny St before the funeral. I suppose that the mass grave is beneath the grass in the foreground here. I have not counted the names on the plaques - I assume that all those missing were included, a ghastly precursor of that the vast wall of names at Tyne Kot. All those Leith lads.

The few survivors were given a day to recover and then sent onwards to their original destination of Gallipolli.