Day 7
Remembering the Gretna Rail Disaster
This Remembrance Day we remember the 216 servicemen of 7th (Leith) Battalion, The Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment) (7RS), and the 12 civilians who lost their lives in the UK’s worst rail collision.
At 6.59am on Monday 22nd May 1915 the troop train heading to Liverpool crashed into a parked passenger train at Quintinshill, and wreckage spilled onto the neighbouring line, which was then hit by the northbound Glasgow express.
Citadel Arts Group have provided 2 poems and images from their project ‘Words and Images about Leith’ They were inspired by the 100 year anniversary of the event held at Out of the Blue, (now based in the Battalion’s Drill Hall on Dalmeny Street) in 2015.
IN MEMORY OF GRETNA
The coffins passed by here,
on Pilrig Street,
while the church stood silently by.
It seemed like an endless procession,
to their final resting place.
One hundred years from this day,
each poppy named to pave the way,
though some were recognised, some were not,
their laughter turned to death,
in an instant.
And so the church still stands,
with the sun shining through the windows,
on a congregation bowed in memory,
of those who went with spirits high,
to live and not to die.
—John Lamb
As part of the project young people from Pilmeny Youth centre created tags with the names of each of those who died which were hung on ‘The tree of life’, and poppies with the names of servicemen were painted on the street from the Drill Hall to the nearby cemetery where bodies were buried in a mass grave.
TREE OF LIFE
Life
On this tree
A memory is made
Of those who perished
At Quintinshill near Gretna
Copper rods and strips of wire
Interwoven they thread through discs
Soldered branches and a twisted mesh
Vines which envelope and make the shape
And from it hangs a proud display
Of two hundred and sixteen
Glass ID discs
One for each
Fallen man
—Alan Mountford
Citadel Arts Group performed a play ‘When the War Came Home’ about the impact of WWI on Edinburgh. A film of the play can be purchased from Citadel Arts for £10. Contact info@citadelartsgroup.co.uk for more information.