Donald Ian Mackenzie was born in Kincardine, Ross-shire in 1891 and moved with his family to live in Tongue in 1908 where they ran the Tongue Hotel. Donald was a talented piper and in 1912 he won the Gold Medal at the Inverness Northern Meeting and is pictured below with his pipes and medal. In 1913 he emigrated to Canada with his new wife Elsie McLean but on the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 he returned to the UK.

 

On the 13 November 1916 Donald was mobilised for service with the 3rd Battalion Scots Guards. The 3rd was a reserve force formed at Chelsea Barrocks in August 1914 that supplied men to the 1st and 2nd Battalions.  By March Donald was transferred to the 1st Battalion as a piper landing in France on the 19 March 1917.

 

During the first few months of the war the Scots Guards suffered heavy casualties amongst the pipers and as a result the bands of the 1st and 2nd Battalions soon ceased to exist. Although reconstituted the pipers were not again used in the front line. The 1st and 2nd Battalion Scots Guards served on the Western Front from the outbreak of the War until the Armistice in 1918. Donald was probably involved in the Battle of the Aisne, First Battle of Ypes, and the Battle of Passchendaele.Donald’s friend William Macdonald also served as a piper with the Scots Guards.

 

Donald survived the war and in 1936 he won the Gold Medal at the Argyllshire Gathering in Oban.