‘There are 5000 Scotch soldiers in Bristol just now’ Diary of Eirene Champney, 11 November 1914 One of the regiments that came to Bristol for training was the 10th Battalion, the Black Watch. The men were billeted in the Colston Hall. This meant that the Bristol Choral Society’s traditional Christmas performance of Handel’s Messiah had to be cancelled that year. The Black Watch left Bristol in 1915. The officers posed for a photograph in front of the Victoria Rooms before leaving for further training and then Salonika. Of these at least three were killed. Brothers Archibald and Robert Don both died in the Balkans, Archibald of wounds and Robert missing in action. Lieutenant Patrick Anderson went to Salonika with the Black Watch, but later changed to the Royal Flying Corps. He received serious wounds when flying over Flanders in the summer of 1918, and after months in hospital and several operations, he died of his wounds in November 1921.