Born: 19 April, 1910, in Sheerness, Kent. Died: 20 March, 2008, in Aberlour, Banffshire, aged 97.LIEUTENANT Colonel "Billy" Innes was a temporary major with the 2nd Bttn Gordon Highlanders when Singapore was surrendered to the Ja
panese on 15 February, 1942.
His wife, Alison, had been evacuated on one of the last ships to leave the beleaguered city. It was to be almost a year before she knew whether her husband was dead or alive.
Back in Banffshire after the war, the couple established successful tweed weaving and market garden businesses at the Old Manse of Marnoch, long before self-sufficiency and DIY became popular topics for TV and newspapers.
Their characteristically matter-of-fact reasoning for taking up weaving with a hand loom – they designed their own tweeds – was that it was a remunerative way to spend the dark days of winter.
Innes also had a natural talent, inherited from his mother, for gardening, which had stood him in good stead during captivity when he had been able to supplement sparse camp rations with fresh food. He was also an excellent cook.
Throughout his captivity, he managed to retain, against all odds, a copy of MacGregor Skene's A Flower Book for the Pocket. He continued to refer to the torn, tattered and taped pages until his death. For years, as a market gardener, he was able to say with justifiable pride that he could pick a lettuce every day of the year.
Late in life, the hidden reserves that had carried Innes through wartime captivity re-emerged when Alison suffered a stroke. He nursed her continuously, with loyal local help, for eight years until her death in 1997.
His family were Innes of Cowie near Stonehaven and Raemoir, Banchory. His father, James, was a Royal Navy captain, his mother, Sheila, the daughter of Lt Col John Forbes of Rothiemay.
He was educated at Marlborough College and the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, before joining the Gordon Highlanders in 1930 as a second lieutenant.
In 1935, the 2nd Gordons were posted to Gibraltar, where family tradition has it he rode to hounds with the Royal Calpe Hunt in the surrounding Spanish countryside (founded in 1812, the hunt was disbanded in 1940).
In 1939, he married Mary Alison Burnett-Stuart and they joined the battalion in Singapore, taking with them their wedding presents which were inevitably lost in the surrender.
The Gordons played a vital but doomed part in the defence of the island. In October 1942, as prisoners they were shipped, standing for four days in cattle trucks, up the line to start work on the 415km Thailand-Burma 'death railway'.
Reticent and modest about his time as a PoW, Innes would later insist that there were others who had been worse off than him. He was unimpressed by the belated £10,000 compensation payment to former PoWs in 2000. He wanted the Japanese to say sorry.
In 1949, by now with the 1st Battalion, he was parade commander when the Gordons were given the freedom of Aberdeen. But the prospect of more overseas postings saw him retire from the army in 1952 for the relative solitude of post-war Banffshire.
At Marnoch, he created a unique flower and shrub garden which opened for charity. Like most gardeners, he was generous with his knowledge and his plants. Until his death he was patron of the "Foggie" (Aberchirder) flower show. A lightsome Scottish country dancer, he had given lessons in Aberdeen, Egypt and Sudan and at the local prep school, Blairmore, rather to the chagrin of his sons, Jonathan and Michael, who were pupils there.
Well into his eighties, Innes triumphantly danced a reel of the 51st Highland Division at the wedding of a neighbour's daughter. He was a vice lord-lieutenant of Banffshire, chairman of the local Territorial and Auxiliary Forces Association and involved in former PoW associations.
Following Alison's death in 1997 – they had moved from Marnoch to a smaller house in Aberlour – the colonel surprised and delighted everyone when at the age of 90, he married Patricia Gordon.
Patricia was with him when he took the salute in 2006 in Aberlour at the Beating Retreat for The Highlanders (Gordons and Queens Own Highlanders). Two days later, at the Freedom of the City of Aberdeen parade for the Highlanders Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, Brigadier Hugh Monro paid tribute to Lt Col Innes and his generation, saying: "His example and those of his ilk will get our backs a little straighter in a world where service and commitment are oft-forgotten values."
The full article contains 777 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
