Scottish Regiments in TV Programmes and Films

A few years ago I compiled this list of Scottish regiments I had seen in films and television programmes. It has been a while since I updated it so recent appearances of Scottish troops on large or small screen may not have not been noted. If anyone can add any more, or correct any mistakes please leave a comment here or on our facebook page.

Note that most entries are for highland regiments. As far as I know, no KOSB or HLI soldiers have featured in a film.

Real Regiments

Scots Guards

TV Film ‘Tumbledown’ – Robert Lawrence’s story based on his own book about his time with the Scots Guards before and during the Falklands Conflict.

TV Drama ‘The Camomile Lawn’ – Character Hector is in Scots Gds in WW2. Service Dress tunic on screen is of Grenadiers but his wife refers to the three button spacing of his tunic in another scene.

Film ‘Paratrooper’ – Harry Andrews’s Para RSM is ex-Scots Guards.

Royal Scots Greys

Film ‘Waterloo’ – Charge of the Union Brigade. See also Gordons

Royal Scots Fusiliers

TV Series - Poirot special. Chronologically the first story but not first one made. See also unknowns

Black Watch

Film ‘The Sand Pebbles’ – Extras in scenes in Shanghai Bund

TV Series ‘Strathblair’ – Son is a Black Watch Major

TV Series ‘Monarch of the Glen’ – Flashback special where one character is a Boer War period Black Watch officer.

Film ‘Gunga Din’ – Easy to identify British soldiers for the US movie goers

Film ‘Soldiers Three’ – Easy to identify British soldiers for the US movie goers

Film ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ Black Watch on march behind Allenby in one scene

TV series ‘Northern Exposure’ – The former astronaut’s father or grandfather was an ex- Black Watch piper. His kilt and pipes are found in his loft.

Seaforth Highlanders

TV Series - Evelyn Waugh autobiographical comedy / drama – One of the officers wears a Seaforth glengarry

Film ‘Tobruk’ - Nigel Green’s colonel is a Seaforth.

Film ‘Appointment with Venus’ – David Niven as Seaforth Commando

TV Series - Blood Red Roses – Crippled father is a Seaforth. Fought in N.Africa, Italy N.W. Europe and Norway in the script. No Seaforths in Norway.

74th Highlanders

Film 'The Rare Breed'- James Stewart Western about breeding cattle. Brian Keith is a rival rancher and Scottish ex-soldier who turns up in 74th Full Dress to impress Maureen O'Hara. Keith’s ridiculous accent is more than matched by the fiery thatch of ginger facial hair he sports. (Rip Torn recreates this ridiculous combination of hair and tortured accent as a drunken Scottish sailor in Goldie Hawn / Kurt Russell comedy ‘Swept Away’)

Gordon Highlanders

TV Series ‘The Monoc’led Mutineer’ – Involved in rioting in town.

Film ‘Waterloo’ – Several scenes. See also Scots Greys

Film ‘Zeppelin’ – Michael York as a half-German, half-Scots Gordon

Film ‘The Heroes of the Krait’ Gordons officer leading Operation Rimau against Japs – all captured, tortured and beheaded.

Film ‘The Highest Honour’ Gordons officer leading Operation Rimau against Japs – all captured, tortured and beheaded.

TV Series ‘The Heroes’ Gordons officer leading Operation Rimau against Japs – all captured, tortured and beheaded.

Film ‘The Drum’ – Volunteers from regiment help Political Officer Roger Livesey on North West Frontier during the 1930’s

Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders

TV Film ‘Kim’ – Deserter is a Cameron

Film ‘Whisky Galore’ – Island in Inverness-shire. Home Guard in Camerons uniform

Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders

Film ‘Too Late the Hero’ South-East Asia 1941/42

Film ‘To End All Wars’ – Several key characters are Argylls

Film ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ – 93rd Highlanders

Film ‘The Captive Heart’ – Blind Gordon Jackson is an Argyll. See also unknown regiment section.

Recent TV Film ‘The Thirty Nine Steps’ – Set in 1914. Wrong sporrans.

The Highland Regiment

TV Sitcom ‘Dad’s Army'

Canadian Scots

Film ‘The Devil’s Brigade’ – Canadian contingent led by Pipe Band. Several Canadian Scots regiments represented.

Seaforth Highlanders of Canada

Film ‘Paratrooper’ Alan Ladd joins Paras via Seaforths of Canada. Also Harry Andrews is an ex-Scots Guards RSM

Unknown regiments

Poirot special – In military hospital red tartan kilt. Canadians? See also RSF

Film ‘The Captive Heart’ – Reformed 51st Div personnel used as extras playing captured 51st Div. men using real POW camp in Germany for film set. See also Argylls

Film ‘The Man who Would be King’ Sean Connery and Michael Caine laughing about one of the pipers in their old regiment during their campaign in Afghanistan. Could be 72nd or 92nd Highlanders?

Confused Soldiers

Sean Connery in 'Murder on the Orient Express' is a Royal Scot in one scene and a Scots Guard in another

Richard Todd is referred to as a Cameronian and but dressed as a Cameron Highlander in the ‘Hasty Heart’. Both regiments had battalions in Burma where it is set.

Made-up Regiments

Caledonian Highlanders - Film ‘Bonnie Scotland’ Laurel & Hardy. Uniform based on Black Watch and Camerons

Spofforth Highlanders - Film ‘The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer’. The Colonel of the Regiment, Julian Glover, is bribed to steal the Swiss gold reserves for Britain to avoid amalgamation. Can’t remember uniform details (Camerons?)

Third Foot and Mouth - Film ‘Carry-on Up the Khyber’ – Uniformed as Camerons

Un-named Highland Regiments

Film ‘Tunes of Glory’ - Hunting Scot tartan for the kilts. Lion rampant replaced the St Andrew of the Cameron's badge. The regiment in the book is based on Gordon Highlanders. See also the book George McDonald Fraser’s ‘The General Danced at Dawn’ which has characters very obviously based on the same real life people as Kennoway’s ‘Tunes of Glory’)

TV Series ‘The Avengers’. Episode from 1st series ‘Esprit de Corps’. Duncan MacRae. Roy Kinnear, John Thaw. 1960s Jacobites in Camerons uniform.

Film ‘The Amorous Prawn’ hard up General uses his HQ as a Country house hotel. Camerons? turn up at the end.

Film ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’ – Song & Dance scene in Portobello Road. Uniform of government tartan kilt, Black Watch bonnet badge (Not hackle).

TV Pathologist Series from early 1990’s. Officer Presiding at a Court martial. QOHldrs glengarry with a thistle badge. Couldn’t identify kilt.

Film ‘You Must be Joking’ – Several military / secret service folk are set some tasks around London to assess their suitability for a mission. Lionel Jeffries as Sgt. Maj. McGregor turns up in Full Dress including feather bonnet. Argyll uniform?

Others

I have a feeling that Alexander Korda had a Highland regiment in his Sudan shots in ‘The Four Feathers’. This story has been remade several times and pretty much all of them re-used Korda’s footage so there may well be several more films with these Highlanders in them.

I’m not sure that ‘Young Winston’ has some Highlanders in the Battle of Omdurman scenes but it has been many years since I have seen that film so can’t be sure. The Seaforths and Camerons were both involved in this Campaign. In the same film Edward Woodward plays an officer in the Boer War train derailment scene. In real life Churchill was travelling with Royal Dublin Fusiliers but in the film I’m pretty sure the officer had a helmet flash of the Douglas tartan of the Cameronians.

Who's Who in Scottish Military history - Major General Robert ‘Roy’ Urquhart CB DSO

In our Who’s Who of Boxing Day we wrote about the actor David Niven. A name I mentioned in the text was a contemporary of Niven in 2nd Bn HLI in Malta who later went on to become a general and in 1944 was at the centre of one of the most controversial operations of the Second World War.

The man selected to command 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem was the big Scot, Roy Urquhart.

Urquhart had risen slowly but steadily through the ranks since his time with the HLI in Malta. He had held various regimental and staff appointments but 1st Airborne was his first command of a Division. He got it on the back of his impressive handling of 231 Brigade Group in Sicily.

I’m not going to go into too much detail of Arnhem here because the story of it is well known. What isn’t in doubt is Urquhart’s personal bravery and the immense respect that he earned from his airborne troops. What may be in doubt is whether Urquhart was the best man for the job.

He was picked to command the Airborne Division because of his infantry experience, not because he understood airborne tactics and some criticism levelled at him is that he shouldn’t have allowed his men to be landed so far from their targets. He also managed to get himself separated from his troops and left his division leaderless for a crucial 30 hours. He was further criticised for the location of his final perimeter which was undefendable and meant he had to evacuate his men back over the Rhine. In nine days he had lost 80% of his command. At lot of it was out of his control and he only had a few days to prepare for the battle so he was not out of favour in high circles but 1st Airborne Division never recovered from its mauling at Arnhem and Urquhart took no further part in the fighting during the war.

After VE day 1st Airborne Division was allocated to Operation Doomsday, the plan to oversee the surrender of 350,000 German troops in Norway in May 1945 and Urquhart only had 6,000 troops at his disposal and only four days to plan his arrival. The operation went smoothly and for a while Urquhart was promoted to command all British troops in Norway.

For the next few years he was involved in the TA in the UK until 1950 when he was sent to Malaya during the Emergency. At first he was there as a divisional commander but soon took over as Commander of British forces in Malaya. He only spent a relatively short time there and was succeeded by Gerald Templar in 1952. Templar is credited with beating the communist guerrillas but it was Urquhart who laid the foundations for victory with his shake up of the British and Commonwealth land forces.

He then moved to a happier command, in charge of the British occupation forces in Austria until they left in 1955. There were tensions between the Western Powers and the Soviet Union in occupied Austria and it was a diplomatic rather than military role but it was a successful and peaceful end to a career of highs and lows.

Urquhart then took the opportunity to leave the army, still a Major General, eleven years after being appointed to the rank, and took a job with British Steel until he retired in 1970. He died on 13th December 1988, aged 87.

(Text by Adam Brown)

Who's Who in Scottish Military History - David Niven

It seemed to come as a surprise to some lately that the quintessential English gentleman, Hugh Grant, should have a connection to a Highland regiment but his name should have been a clue. Hugh Grant is not an uncommon name around the Moray Firth. Grant has take on a role within Holywood which was once occupied by another Englishman with Scottish roots, David Niven.

I’ll not go into detail about Niven's Holywood life here; you can find plenty about that in books and articles elsewhere but I’ll mention his time in a Scottish regiment in the 1930s. Niven wasn’t born in Kirriemuir as he liked to claim but his father’s family did hail from Perthshire and after a troubled childhood he had decided he wanted to serve as an officer in a Highland regiment.

At Sandhurst he put down as his first choice of regiment the Argylls, second was Black Watch and for his third choice he was too smart for his own good and wrote “Anything but the Highland Light Infantry”. The army took a dim view of this and packed him off to the 2nd Battalion HLI in Malta. The HLI were aware of his comment and he found the HLI Officers Mess unwelcoming. He did make friends with a couple of other officers - Roy Urquhart, who later commanded 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem; and Michael Trubshawe who became a character actor in British films in the 1950’s and ‘60’s.

Inter Platoon Cup, 1930. David Niven sitting front row, third from the left. Michael Trubshawe is sitting front row third from the right.

He didn’t enjoy his time with the HLI and after two years he ran away to Holywood and the rest as they say is history. In 1939 he returned to the UK to sign up. He didn’t even try the HLI. At first he tried the RAF but they wouldn’t have him but a friend got him a commission in the Rifle Brigade. He later served in the Commandos and Phantom Force.

When he was in Malta I’m sure Niven rued writing “Anything but the Highland Light Infantry” but would he have found the fame he did if he had been posted to the Argylls? Perhaps if fate had placed him in a welcoming regiment he would have settled into the life of a regular army officer and never gone near acting. What if, eh?