Andrew Karsgaard

Andrew has always been fascinated by diplomatic and military history and studied it to MA (Hons) level at the University of Glasgow.

His childhood was spent in Canada, India and Germany. One constant during that period were school holidays spent at his grandparents' home in Scotland. That side of his family are from East Lothian and Berwickshire, and it was while visiting an aunt in Coldstream that he came across a Lothians and Border Yeomanry cap badge in an antique shop. Its unusual design - a simple wheatsheaf - intrigued him, and though familiar with other, storied local regiments, He had only vaguely heard of this county-based unit before. The more he learned of them, the more intrigued he became, especially once, soon after starting his research, he came across the experiences of the 1st Lothians in France in 1940, of whose 750 men only 23 escaped injury, death or captivity. He felt compelled to find out more.

Happily, this coincided with a spell living back in Edinburgh, and through connections there and in today's Army Reserve, he was able to meet with family members of some of those Lothians and gain access to unpublished personal accounts, diaries and correspondence. Those brought home to me the human aspect of their story, and determined me to write it down.