One night in Bell's when Hamish was in with Sandy, his collie, he told me about his feelings at El Alamein as he watched, listened to and felt the biggest artillery barrage in history so far and how he decided that he had to put into lyrics to the tune that the CO of the Black Watch battalion had requested the Pipe Major to play for the battalion's advance. The tune was "The Bloody Fields of Flanders" which Hamish diddled by the arch in Bell's. After a few bars he said, "In that time three men I knew had been killed". He said it took him some weeks to write lyrics that paid justice to what they believed they were fighting and dying for.

Fantastic, thank you. The BBC broadcast a documentary a long time ago with Hamish talking about (I think) Elegies For The Dead in Cyrenaica. He was standing on a dusty road somewhere talking about what it had been like, and he suddenly started singing The 51st Highland Division's Farewell to Sicily. Spellbinding. I was never lucky enough to hear him sing in person, so this kind of thing is great to hear.

Beautiful. One of my favourite melodies.

Classic Hamish Henderson.