St Cuthbert`s Remembrance Service

Dunfermline Athletic will be represented at the McCrae Battalion Contalmaison Cairn, on the Somme, on Sunday 1 July by John Simpson, Tam Hart and Ray Davis.

A DAFC wreath will be laid along with many others, including Hearts, Hibs, Falkirk and Raith Rovers. Our wreath commemorates Davie Izatt and Jimmy Morton of Dunfermline Athletic, together with a much larger number of their fellow townspeople, who were killed on 1 July 1916 with McCrae`s Battalion (16 Royal Scots).

There will also be a special church service at St Cuthbert`s in Edinburgh at 10.30 for 11.00 am. The Contalmaison ceremony will be relayed there, and a wreath will also be laid at the McCrae plaque at the Usher Hall. Please feel free to join Donald Adamson, Chairman of Pars United CIC, DAFC`s holding company, at the service in Edinburgh. Details per the attached poster.

Dunfermline Athletic is proud to be a life member of McCrae`s Battalion Trust.

A SERVICE WILL BE HELD IN ST CUTHBERT`S CHURCH ON
SUNDAY 1 JULY 2018 TO MARK THE END OF THE WW1 CENTENARIES.
START TIME: 10.30 FOR 11.00.

The service will commemorate the sacrifice made by men from the City of Edinburgh and surrounding towns who volunteered to join the 16th Royal Scots at the battalion`s momentous Usher Hall recruiting launch in November 1914. This battalion was also known as `The Sporting Battalion` as a result of the much publicised enlistment of players from Heart of Midlothian and other football teams, and (more famously) as `McCrae`s Battalion` after its charismatic Colonel, Sir George McCrae. Three quarters of these volunteers were killed or wounded near the village of Contalmaison on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

Before our service proper begins, you’ll get the chance to see the first footage from the morning’s Remembrance event in Contalmaison. At the end of the service a poppy wreath in memory of those who died will be uplifted and piped out of the church. Those attending the service are invited to follow the wreathbearer and piper up Lothian Road to the McCrae`s Battalion commemorative plaque on the steps of the Usher Hall in McCrae`s Place, where the wreath will be placed and dedicated.

This Act of Remembrance at the Usher Hall will occur annually in years to come on the Sunday nearest to 1 July.

You are subsequently invited to return to the Lindisfarne Room of St Cuthbert`s (at approximately 13.00) for refreshments and another chance to view footage of the Remembrance Ceremony held in Contalmaison earlier that morning.