Pupils from Leith Academy were out in force today in advance of the Gretna/Quintinshill Rail Disaster ceremony at the weekend.
Their stencilled poppies, with forenames and the dates 1915 and 2015, now punctuate the pavement at roughly 10-foot intervals between the Drill Hall on Dalmeny Street and Rosebank Cemetery on Pilrig Street.
Each one recalls one of the 216 Royal Scots killed in the appalling accident whose 100th anniversary will be marked with a solemn procession along the original funeral route on Saturday.
The incorrectly worded plaque outside Rosebank has now been replaced with a corrected and expanded version.
Beside the Celtic memorial cross inside the cemetery, an interesting explanatory board has been erected by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
A documentary about the Gretna Disaster will be screened on BBC2 tomorrow evening at 9.00pm.
Leith local historian Andrew Grant reserves judgement about the TV programme. Some of it, he claims, repeats stories about ‘mercy killings’ in the immediate aftermath of the crash.
There were certainly scenes of horror on the day, he remarked during a talk to Leith Central Community Council yesterday, but there is no reliable evidence that trapped victims were shot to save them from the flames.
