Great War poets in plaque tribute

WAR poets are to be remembered with a series of plaques.

The project, led by Aberdeen University, will see a trail of plaques installed across Scotland to commemorate poets of the First World War.

Complementing eight physical plaques will be an online trail with proposals also under way for a national memorial in Edinburgh.

Several poets will be remembered including Sergeant Joseph Lee, who sketched his British comrades as well as German prisoners, and wrote about comradeship on the battlefield.

Others include Violet Jacob, whose son Harry died during the Battle of the Somme, and Margaret Sackville, who wrote some of the earliest anti-war poems.

Monuments to novelist and war survivor John Buchan and Seaforth Highlanders Lieutenant Ewart Alan Mackintosh, will also be part of the trail.

Neil McLennan, a senior lecturer at Aberdeen University, took inspiration for the project from his great-grandfather’s connection to Mackintosh.

He fought beside him at Cambrai in 1917, when the poet was killed.

Mr McLennan said: “I hope many people will be inspired to go back to look at their family records.”