PRIVATE THOMAS BOYD MATHISON
ROYAL SCOTS
2ND NOVEMBER 1917 AGE 29
BURIED: GAZA WAR CEMETERY, ISRAEL
The instructions to the stone carver are very specific: "Stone No. 2452 - three stops and inverted commas to be engraved as shown", which is strange as this is the first line of the song so there is nothing that comes before these words. I wonder what Private Mathison's parents meant to convey by their instructions?
The words come from 'Auld Robin Gray', a Scottish ballad by Lady Anne Lindsay (1750-1825). In the song, a young woman laments the fact that she has married Robin Gray at her parents' urging, an elderly man with money. Jamie, the young man she hoped to marry has gone away and was thought to have died when his ship was wrecked. But he returns soon after the wedding. Robin Gray is a good man but he is not Jamie.
When the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye a' at hame,
And a' the warld to rest are gane,
The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my e'e,
While my gudeman lies sound by me.
The words of the ballad are not relevant to Mr and Mrs Mathison's situation, but the feeling of despair, of life having no meaning could well have influenced their choice. The young woman dare not think of Jamie, she can't rouse herself to do what she ought: 'I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to dee'; 'I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin'.
Thomas Mathison, a gardener in civilian life, joined up in November 1915. He served as a Lewis gunner with the 1/4th Battalion Royal Scots in Palestine and was killed in action on 2 November 1917 in the strong Ottoman fight back following the fall of Beersheba on the 1st.
"He was killed instantaneously by a bullet on Friday morning, 2/11/17, while making a gallant attempt to bring his Lewis gun into action. He was a good soldier, and his cheery nature made him very popular with his comrades."
Quoted from County of Peebles Book of Remembrance.