A PIONEERING surgeon and Suffragette, the first black officer in the British Army and a Scottish soldier-poet are to have their images engraved on five Scottish beaches.
They will be among some of the participants of the First World War who will featured on a series of large scale sand portraits across the UK as part of the movie director Danny Boyle's Armistice remembrance art work, Pages of the Sea.
The faces will be created on 32 beaches around the UK and Ireland, including on six beaches in Scotland: West Sands in St Andrews, Roseisle beach on Moray Firth, Culla Bay on the isle of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides, Ayr Beach, St Ninian’s Isle beach in Shetland and Scapa Beach in Orkney.
Five out of the six locations will feature a large-scale sand portrait of a "local fallen hero" designed by artists Sand in Your Eye.
The portrait will be drawn into the sand on the beach and washed away as the tide comes in.
The public will be asked to join in by creating silhouettes of people in the sand, an action designed to remember the millions of lives lost in the 1914-1918 conflict.
Roseisle Beach in Moray will commemorate Aberdeen-born Captain Charles Hamilton Sorley who was a British Army Officer and a Scottish war poet.
Ayr Beach will remember Second Lieutenant Walter Tull, who was Britain’s second black professional footballer who had signed up with Glasgow Rangers in 1917, and the first black officer in the British Army.
Tull, born in Kent and also a player for Tottenham Hotspur and Northampton Town, died in battle in France in 1918, during the last major German offensive, and his body was never found.
St Andrew’s West Sand beach will honour Dr Elsie Inglis who made her name as a pioneering surgeon and as a Suffragette.
Dr Inglis also set up hospitals to treat thousands of injured men on the European front line where more than 1,500 women worked in France, Serbia, Corsica, Salonika, Romania, Russia and Malta.
Scapa beach in Orkney will commemorate Lieutenant Robert William Taylor.
Born at Mounthoolie, Flotta, Robert Taylor joined the National Bank of Scotland before enlisting in Kirkwall on 6th July 1915.
He fought in the Battle of Somme and earned the award of a Military Cross during the Battle of Passchendaele.
Culla Bay beach on Benbecula will honour Deckhand Duncan MacKinnon who was one of six brothers in the MacKinnon family who fought in the Great War, two of whom – Duncan and his brother Neil, a seaman – died during the war.
He drowned aged 22.
The poet Carol Ann Duffy has also been invited by Boyle to write a new poem, which will be read by individuals, families and communities as they gather on beaches on 11 November.
The work is commissioned and produced by 14-18 NOW, and is the culmination of the five-year programme of arts commissions marking the First World War centenary.
Read more about Armistice 100
- Caring for wounded soldiers and force-feeding suffragettes: two sides of the First World War
- WW1 sweetheart shattered by fiance's death ... yet her love endured for 55 years
- Like father, like son: Heroes were badly wounded in world wars
- Keith Bruce: The amazing artworks that are marking the First World War centenary
- Will poppies wilt as Scotland's military family shrinks?
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