Steel and Tartan

In the summer of 1914 Scotland prepared for war. Steel and Tartan charts the adventures of the 4th Battalion, Queens Own Cameron Highlanders - from their training in Bedford with the Highland Division through to five major engagements in France, including the Battle of Neuve Chapelle and the Battle of Loos, to eventual break-up in March 1916 at the hands of the British Army administrators. Of the 1,500 men who fought with the Battalion, over 250 were killed and either buried in one of the many British war cemeteries in France or else left where they fell, their names etched on one of the memorials to the missing. Using previously unpublished diaries, letters and memoirs together with original photographs and newspaper accounts, Patrick Watt tells the story of the gallant officers and men of the 4th Camerons: those 'Saturday night soldiers' who went so eagerly to war in August 1914.

Patrick Watt was born in Inverness and grew up in the seaside town of Nairn. In 2000, he moved to Edinburgh to work for the Scottish Government, before transferring to the National Archives of Scotland in 2002. After six years working in the Historical Search Room, he moved to Istanbul, Turkey and studied for a BA in History with the Open University.