Private John Easton

Private John William Easton, 11th ( Service ) Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. He was killed in action in France, aged 23, on the 27th September 1915 during the Battle of Loos. He had been born in Selkirk in 1893 and was the son of Charles and Marion Easton of Ettrick Road, Selkirk and West Stirling Street, Alva, Clackmannanshire and he is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, Dud Corner, Loos, France. He had played for Selkirk Rugby Club and was a sprinter who had won the Selkirk Common Riding handicap in 1913. He had enlisted in Stirling and went to France with his Battalion in July 1915.The first photograph shows Highlanders marching up to the line at Loos and the second depicts an actual attack with the troops advancing into a ghostly cloud of gas and smoke. The third shows the village of Loos after its capture.