Hamish Mann was born in Broughty Ferry, Scotland on 5 April 1896. He was educated at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh then, owing to illness, by private tuition. During the early part of the war he was a volunteer at Craigleith Military Hospital. On 28 July 1915 he was gazetted as a 2nd Lieutenant and was drafted to France in August 1916, where he joined the 8th Battalion Black Watch at La Comt\u00e9, near Bethune. He took part in the Battle of the Somme and the 1st Battle of the Scarpe. <\/p>\n
On 9 April 1917, whilst leading his platoon during the advance at Arras, he was seriously wounded by a shell and died the following day.<\/p>\n
During his time at Craigleith Military Hospital Hamish had contributed to the Craigleith Chronicle<\/em> and several other publications under the pseudonym Lucas Cappe. He wrote over two dozen poems during his time in France. After his death his parents published a collection of his pre-war and war poems under the title A Subaltern’s Musings<\/em> in 1918.<\/p>\n Several of the poems in the collection describe the horrors of the battlefield, and a few more are humorous, but most muse upon the nature of war, and the likelihood of his own survival. He manages to face up to death with a matter-of-fact attitude, as in ‘Weep Not For Me’ Scottish Poetry Library http:\/\/www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk\/poetry\/poets\/hamish-mann<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n