More about Robert Frazer Ramsay

For reasons unknown this man is not listed on the original Dundee Roll of Honour.

On 30 December 1914, Telegraph also published this account of life in the trenches submitted by 1820 Pte. Robert Ramsay, 1/5th (Angus and Dundee) Black Watch.
Pte. Ramsay was wounded at the Aubers Ridge in May 1915, and tragically would accidentally drown in Monifieth Bay while on convalescent leave on 22 July 1917.

BLACK WATCH TERRITORIALS AT THE FRONT HAVE 6 KILLED AND 25 WOUNDED. Private Robert Ramsay, 3 Annfield Row, Dundee, who is at the front with the 5th Battalion (Angus and Dundee) Black Watch, in a letter home, states that six of the men have been killed and 25 wounded.
He remarks: – “We have had six days in the trenches, and, my word! it was cold. We had rain all the time, and we were wading knee-deep in mud and water, and our ‘dug-outs,’ where we had to sleep, were much the same.
“We are stationed beside the regulars, and it is no child’s play. We are getting used to the bullets and shells screaming over our heads, and we get no sleep with the noise and the cold. We have had six killed and 25 wounded, but we have got off lucky.
“We have seen some very strange sights out here. All the farmhouses around the zone of fire are razed to the ground. There is nothing but dead cows and horses lying about, and they don’t half cause a smell! At the back of our trenches are hundreds of graves of our Tommies. They are all marked by a wooden cross – not a great place for graves on a bullet and shell-swept plain, but they are all heroes and men Britons will ever be proud of.
“I only wish some of the Nethergate ‘knuts’ were out here roughing it and fighting like men for their country instead of swanking about the streets on Saturday nights. It is a great change to us. Instead of the lighted streets to which we were accustomed we have to march through roads covered with mud and in darkness, and the bullets flying all round, with no comfort whatever.”
Private Allan Timmons, another Dundee member of the 5th Black Watch, confirms the statement of Private Ramsay regarding the casualties of the battalion, the only difference being that he places the wounded at 29. Socks and clothing, according to Private Timmons, have been distributed amongst the local men. (The Evening Telegraph and Post, Wednesday, 30 December 1914, 3.)

Carnoustie Herald July 1917.
Soldier drowned while bathing at Monifieth.

A sad drowning accident occurred at Monifieth shortly after five o’clock on Sunday afternoon, the victim being Sergeant Robert Ramsay, Black Watch. The deceased, who had been wounded at the Front, was on holiday from Norfolk and was on a visit to his uncle, Mr Alex Roger, Forest Park Road, Dundee.

Accompanied by Mr Roger he went to Monifieth on Sunday to visit some friends and in the afternoon he went for a bathe at the east side of Monifieth Sands along with a son of Mr Roger and another young man named Crichton. They boarded a boat which belongs to Mr Clayton, who also hails from Dundee, and when about 100 yards from shore, the boat was anchored.

The Sergeant, divesting himself of his clothing, dived into the water. He had only been in the water for a very short time when he was seen by his friends to be in difficulty. They tried to help him by holding out an oar but the unfortunate soldier had evidently been seized with illness and could not grasp it.

The anchor was quickly lifted, which drew the boat away from the spot where he was seen to sink, and although every effort was made to find him, the search proved fruitless. The cries of the young men in the boat attracted the attention of several men on the beach but as no boat was available, the tide being about high water, no assistance could be rendered from the shore. The body was recovered three hours later when the tide receded from the spot where the accident happened and Sergeant Brown had the remains removed to the mortuary in Tay Street.

Sergeant Ramsay, who belonged to Dundee, was 20 years of age and was a member of the original British Expeditionary Force going to the Front with his regiment on the outbreak of hostilities. He was wounded in May 1915 and since leaving hospital had been employed in conducting drafts from the south of England to France. Prior to his enlistment 3½ years ago, Sergeant Ramsay was employed in Lawson’s Ropeworks in Dundee.

The remains of Sergeant Robert Ramsay were interred with military honours at Barnhill cemetery yesterday afternoon. Preceded by a firing party from the 77th Training Reserve Battalion under charge of Sergeant Henderson, the cortege left Union Street, Monifieth to the plaintive strains of the Land o the Leal played by the pipe band of the battalion under Pipe Major Smith. The coffin was draped with the Union Jack and there were a large number of spectators who paid homage to the memory of the deceased as the sad procession wended its way along Mall Street and Ferry Road to the cemetery.

Colonel Campbell, Chaplain of the Tay Defences conducted the service at the graveside. The firing party took up their position by the open grave and fired three volleys, the bugles then sounding the Last Post As the grave closed over all that was mortal of Sergeant Ramsay, many thought of the tragic circumstance that one who had come through the ordeal that faced our original Expeditionary Force to France should meet his end in the quiet waters of Monifieth Bay.