Trooper Ronald Blake

Trooper Ronald Jamieson Blake, 2/1st Lothian and Border Horse. He was killed in action in Belgium on 24th October 1917, aged 21, during the Third Battle of Ypres and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Zonnebeke, Flanders, Belgium. He had enlisted in October 1914 and in September 1917 he had been transferred into the 17th Battalion, Royal Scots. He had been born in London the son of Andrew and Mabel and the Grandson of the late Andrew and Agnes of Melrose. Before enlisting he had been a student at the South of Scotland Technical College in Galashiels. ( The 17th R.S. were known as Roseberry’s Bantams). The incessant shelling had destroyed the Flanders drainage systems and turned the ground into a desolate quagmire as can be seen from the photographs.