Lance Corporal William Ruddiman

Lance Corporal William Ruddiman, 7th ( Service )Battalion, Kings Own Scottish Borderers. He was killed in action in France on 25th September 1915 on the first day of the Battle of Loos aged 25. He  is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, Dud Corner, Loos, France. He was the son of Mr and Mrs Walter Ruddiman of Foresters Lodge. Leslie, Fife.  He had trained as a forester and had worked at Floors Castle, Kelso from where he enlisted in November 1914. ( For fuller details of this famous action see under Crerar ). The first photo shows a rather ghostly image of an actual attack with the troops disappearing into the clouds of smoke and gas. This action saw Piper Daniel Laidlaw win the Victoria Cross by piping the men forward under a storm of shot and shell.  This was the first time in the War that the British Army had used gas and on occasion the wind blew it back into our trenches.  The artist’s image tries to depict Laidlaw in action winning his Cross and the second photo shows Piper Laidlaw in later years at an Armistice Day commemoration.