PRIVATE PETER MCLAUGHLAN
CAMERONIANS (SCOTTISH RIFLES)
18TH NOVEMBER 1916 AGE 19
BURIED: LA NEUVILLE COMMUNAL CEMETERY, CORBIE, FRANCE
This doesn't say hope and glory as in 'Land of', but home and glory, the words coming from 'In the Pale Moonlight', a music hall song sung by Vesta Tilley, the male impersonator, whose fame reached its peak during the First World War. 'In the Pale Moonlight' relates a series of stories in which people are caught out trying to be what they aren't. However, the last verse has a complete change of tone.
In the pale moonlight, 'twas an awful sight,
Upon a field of battle.
Lay boys in red who'd fought and bled,
Amidst the din and rattle.
Now the fight was done the victory won,
And on that field so gory,
Were the boys who fought as Britons ought,
For country, home and glory.
It's British courage, it's deeds like these
Makes England the mistress of land and seas.
It's obvious from the reference to 'boys in red' that the song predates the First World War since the British army stopped wearing red jackets when khaki was introduced in 1902. However, for Helen McLaughlan and her Scottish sons, pride in "British courage and its deeds", despite the numbers who "fought and bled", which included her son, survived the bloodshed of Flanders.
Peter McLaughlan was the youngest of Helen Maclaughlan's four sons. He served with the 5th/6th Battalion The Cameronians, Scottish Rifles, and was killed on the Somme on the last day of the campaign - "For home and glory".