Private Adam Tulloch Skeldon

Private Adam Tulloch Skeldon, 1st/4th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders. He was  killed in action in Belgium on 23rd October 1917 during the Battle of Third Ypres, aged 34, and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Zonnebeke, Belgium . He had been born in Oldhamstocks and was the son of David and Isabella Skeldon of Oldhamstocks, Berwickshire and husband of Helen Skeldon, East Pinkerston, Dunbar, East Lothian whom he had married in Oldhamstocks in 1910. He had been employed as a gardener in Lauder when he originally enlisted in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders but in France he was then transferred to the Seaforths.  The photographs show the dire conditions of the battlefield. The incessant shelling had destroyed the Flanders drainage systems and the heavy rains had turned the ground into a quagmire. ( Over 4 million shells had been fired in the opening stages of the Offensive ). His Battalion was part of the 154th Brigade in the 51st Highland Division and after the War an impressive Memorial was raised in commemoration. It was erected overlooking “Y” Ravine in Newfoundland Park on the Somme where on the 13th November 1916 the Division had stormed the strong German positions in Beaumont Hamel. A Plaque on the Memorial reads in both Gaelic and English ” Friends are Good On the Day Of Battle”.