Cromarty Archive

Marching to Newton

During the First World War there were army training camps based at Cromarty Mains and at New-ton. This photograph, owned by Mrs Newell, shows soldiers marching up to the Newton Camp. Training in Cromarty was often wet, cold and muddy as ‘The Cromarty Mudlarks' poem by Private James Livesey of the 3rd Seaforths graphically portrays:
‘But what of the Cromarty Mudlarks? What shall we say for these?
Covered with mud to the boot-tops, mud almost up to the knees;
Living for months under canvas, while the rain comes again and again,
And the whole of the camp is a quagmire, and never a ditch nor a drain.'

The complete poem is on the Cromarty Courthouse Museum website:
www.cromarty-courthouse.org.uk/index.asp?pageid=543181

Albums: People, World War 1

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