Lest we forget
We had a really interesting email today from Gerry Graham, Honorary Secretary of the Hawick Archaeological Society, in connection with our Olympics project.
Gerry enclosed an article about Ivan Laing from Hawick who scored the first ever hockey goal in the Olympics. He is commemorated every year with a hockey match between the senior boys and senior girls of Hawick High School and local jeweller Hamish D Smith donated a trophy for this event. Gerry tells us that:
“Ivan, third son of John and Anna, was born at Springbank, Commercial Road, Hawick. He was educated at home by a governess and at New College, Eastbourne, as well as in Belgium. Well known as an athlete, he excelled at swimming, played three-quarter (wing) for Hawick R.F.C. and played for the Teviotdale (mixed) hockey team. By some lucky chance (apparently spotted on the platform by the other members of the team when their train passed through Hawick) he ended up playing for Scotland in the 1908 London Olympics. He played in 2 games, scoring the first ever Olympic goal in hockey (against Germany). The team refused to play Wales for the 3rd place play-off (all in the same day!), and he apparently returned to Hawick on a later train. However, he was never to represent Scotland again at hockey. He went into partnership with his father in 1908, their hosiery business being Drummond & Laings, Wilton Path. This was later taken over by Henderson’s, with whom he remained until enlisting with the London Regiment in 1915. He was then gazetted into the Coldstream Guards. He was awarded the Military Cross at the Somme in 1916, and was buried in France.”
On November 30, 1917, near Cambrai in France, Ivan was killed in action. He was Hawick’s first Olympian and died aged just 32 years.
Posted by: Keith
