Private James Johnstone

Private James Johnstone, 12th ( Service ) Battalion, Royal Scots. He died of wounds in France received in the assault on Longueval on 15th July 1916  during the Battle of the Somme and is buried in Dive Copse British Cemetery Sailly-Le-Sec, Somme, France. He was the son of Mrs Johnston of 42 Duke Street, Coldstream and had originally enlisted in the Kings Own Scottish Borderers. He had been wounded in France with the Battalion and the sent to the Dardanelles where he transferred to the Royal Scots and was then sent back to France for the big Somme Offensive. Before the war he had worked for Mr Rule of Ford as a plasterer.  He was the grandfather of Jock Hardie who lived in Cheviot Terrace. The  photographs show Scots troops on the Somme and the colour image shows a peaceful Somme landscape today with ” no gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now”.