PRIVATE KENNETH MOODIE MCBEAN
KING'S OWN SCOTTISH BORDERERS
25TH OCTOBER 1917 AGE 19
BURIED: DOZINGHEM MILITARY CEMETERY, POPERINGE, BELGIUM
Kenneth McBean's mother chose his inscription, quoting from The Land of the Leal a poem by Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne (1766-1845), in which a mother describes how sorrow for the death of her child is slowly killing her:
I'm wearin' awa', John
Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John,
I'm wearin' awa'
To the land o' the leal.
The land o' the leal, the land where the faithful go, in other words, heaven.
Our bonnie bairn's there, John,
She was both gude and fair, John;
And O! we grudged her sair
To the land o' the leal.
There are small changes in Mrs McBean's version, mainly the change in the personal pronoun; the child in the poem is a girl. The apostrophe after the letter O is probably a misreading by the War Graves Commission of the exclamation mark.
The bereaved mother in the poem feels death approaching and welcomes it because her child is in the land o' the leal:
O, dry your glistening e'e, John!
My saul langs to be free, John!
And angels beckon me
To the land of the leal.
Mrs McBean had two dead children: Allan William McBean, killed in Gallipoli on 26 June 1915 aged 21 and his younger brother, Kenneth, killed in Flanders two years later.