T H E C O V E N A N T E R
photographs were relied upon to depict the of salt with fresh created in the spring the
winter experience. It is normal for only about correct breeding environment for malaria
one quarter of film shot to be actually used carrying mosquitoes. This was a cruel act,
in the final product, and so it proved in the for thousands of local people, and many
Cameronian video. Considerable time and Allied troops, caught malaria.
skill is required by the producer to adjust It was during the Fascist rule of Mussolini
this to the script, with variations always that it was decided to drain the Pontino
necessary in both directions. This is where marshes and reclaim the land. It was by the
the expertise of the director/producer can use of flood barriers and pumps that an area,
be decisive. Ed Skelding (a Glaswegian by hitheto affected by malaria was turned into
birth and a graduate of Stirling University) one of normal living. The project was largely
had many years of experience in the art, successful, for by 1940 the annual malaria
as well a natural empathy with his subject. rate had dropped to 550. The result of the
The penultimate stage is the dubbing of German action in September 1943 brought
background music and sound track, and the the return of malaria to thousands of people.
final steps rests with the presenter to ‘voice The programme stated there is evidence
over’ in the studio those parts of the footage for this cruel act by the Germans. At the
which were not recorded previously when moment the evidence is being assembled
sound filming took place simultaneously to confirm what is strongly believed and
on location. if the legal investigation becomes a reality,
The completed version of the video was the case will be presented to the Germans.
shown to the Regimental Trustees and No doubt we will learn more: the finding of
Council Officers shortly before the date the truth when so many people suffered is
fixed for the reopening of the Museum essential.
and approved. The Museum now has in its Are there any Cameronians of the Italian
possession onsite footage of the Gallipoli campaign who remember the unexpected,
battlefields unique to the Regiment. So far and perhaps unexplained, outbreak of
as I am aware, no other regiment holds a malaria in the spring of 1944?
similar film that is devoted exclusively to its
own regiment. It preserves a visual record of Bill Coughlan
the dauntless courage of Cameronians who,
far from home, under trained for their task,
ill equipped, physically drained by several
Robert Owen and Lanark
weeks aboard ship and by the onset of the In my article last year I was expressing my
scourge of dysentery, richly deserve an surprise that Robert Owen was not known
honoured place in Regimental History. in Lanark either by a statue or any other
means of recognition.
Cliff Pettit The New Lanark Conservation Trust has
provided me with the reason why Robert
The Outbreak of Malaria in Owen was disapproved of in Lanark. I shall
Italy in 1944
quote from the letter I received from the
Trust.
It is possible that in 1944 that Jerry Dawson ‘I have to say that I am not in the least
and the other 100,000 who caught malaria surprised by the lack of awareness of Robert
were the first casualties of biological warfare. Owen in Lanark wither in the 1940’s or
This information was broadcast on BBC indeed at any time. There is a long-standing
Radio 4 on the 8th September 2003. antipathy, if not hostility, to Owen in the
After the Allies landed at Salerno on the Ancient and Royal Burgh of Lanark, which
9th September 1943, the retreating Germans had some difficulty with the industrial
decided to flood the Tiber Delta and the new town that sprang up on its doorstep
former Pontino marshes in the Latima area in 1785, and, even more so with its radical
to hold up the Allied advance. As October owner, whose unorthodox views on religion
to February is the rainy season in this part among other things did not endear him to
of Italy, the area could have become flooded the Lanark establishment.’ Robert Owen
with fresh water if the Germans had turned should have the last word:
off the pumps. Instead they decided to ‘I know that society may be formed so as
reverse the action of the pumps, destroy the to exist without crime, without poverty,
tidal gates and pumped salt water inland with health greatly improved, with little if
to mix with the fresh water. This mixture any misery, and intelligence and happiness

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