The Flowers of the Forest

Back when the Iraq war was new and innocent and still pretty popular I recall a Scotsman headline announcing that, with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards entering the city, there was now the sound of Bagpipes in Basra. There was something thrilling, something tribal too, about this. Regardless of the arguments about the war, the skirl of the pipes summoned and honoured the ghosts (real and imagined) of warriors past. 

One of those warriors was Piper Bill Millin and he is dead now. He may be the most famous piper of the Second World War and his obituary merits quoting at length:

Bill Millin, who died on August 17 aged 88, was personal piper to Lord Lovat on D-Day and piped the invasion forces on to the shores of France; unarmed apart from the ceremonial dagger in his stocking, he played unflinchingly as men fell all around him.

Millin began his apparently suicidal serenade immediately upon jumping from the ramp of the landing craft into the icy water.