Anabelle Bayne
My Great Great Great Uncle
It seems to have been a family secret for many years and the full story was not discovered until myself and my mum was taking some of his belongings to the Black Watch Museum In Perth Scotland. We arrived and went to the reception and said we wished to donate items to the museum, the lady on the reception asked for the name of the soldier we said Alexander Wanliss and she shot out of the room like she had discovered i had the plaque. She returned a short time later with this very official gentleman who turned out to be the Brigadier at that point we wondered what the heck we had done, he said by the look on your faces you dont know the story which we didnt. It turned out the Black Watch looked on him as a hero and had his story being told in the museum and what we had brought completed the story. He had been shot 3 times and each time had been extremely lucky he had been shot in the hip hitting his hip flask and another day he had been shot while holding a thick Bible it stopped the bullet and the third time he had a flask in uniforms top pocket and again it stopped the bullet (thats what i call luck) He also became the first Soldier of the Black Watch to be promoted in the field to Lieutenant so no wonder his name was treated like god as to the black Watch he was a incredible brave man. incase you dont know how he died his luck run out. He used to always go up on top of the trench and ask his men to follow him which they did willingly this time he did this but as he stood on top a shell came down right where he stood and apparently it took a long time to discover enough of him to confirm his death the bits we took to the museum apparently some of those bits ie personnel items they found in his part of the trench. A BRAVE BRAVE MAN.
Kathy Pinna 
