Woman Doctor’s Career In Famous Black Watch

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27410, 24 July 1954, Page 2

Woman Doctor’s Career In Famous Black Watch

NEWS FOR WOMEN

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

LONDON. The only woman to have been appointed Regimental Medical Officer to a British infantry regiment—Major K. M. Prendergast, of Perth, West Australia—died in a Glasgow military hospital on June 1, aged 45. She served in Germany with the Ist Battalion of the Black Watch —and won for herself a unique position of respect in the unit. Dr. “Mick” Prendergast, as she was later known in the Black Watch, joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in England shortly before the end of the Second World War. She was posted to the Biack Watch in 1947Colonel Bernard Fergusson, D. 5.0., 0.8. E., who commanded the Ist Bat-j talion from 1948 to 1951 said recently that it was believed that Major Prendergast was originally appointed medical officer of the battalion as a “leg pull” on the commanding officer. He was expected to protest violently against the appointment. Colonel Fergusson said the opposite happened. Major Prendergast quickly won the hearts of a fairly hard-hearted unit and established herself as part of it. Colonel Fergusson said that for i three, four and five years after she' joined the Black Watch the unit fought to keep her in the regiment. In spite of the efforts of the medical authorities to post her to another centre. Colonel Fergusson described Major Prendergast as “caustic, forthright, skilful, quarrelsome, devoted, friendlv and passionately pro-Black Watch.’” He said she wove herself quickly into the regimental fabric. He added, “officers and ‘Jocks’ alike were at the same time pround, fond and slightly nervous of her. Her devotion was to the Pipes and Drums, whose health and performance she subjected to the closest scrutiny.” He said it was the custom of the: Black Watch Pipes and Drums to play ■ Crimean Reveille, which lasted for •ome 20 minutes, on the fifteenth of I •ach month and for the officers to I

jrouse themselves from their beds to [ hear it. Once, in Duisburg, in the Ruhr, it so happened that all the officers [defected except Dr. “Mick” Prendergast and it was perhaps the proudest I moment of her life when on that mom- | ing it was to her that Drum-Major j Roy Senior, serving member of an i ancient regimental family, applied for | permission to dismiss the Pipes and ; Drums. Uniform Privilege Field-Marshal Lord Wavejl, Colonel lof the regiment granted her permisIsion to wear the red hackle in her I beret and a Black Watch Tartan skirt and all the protests of the Royal Army Medical Corps authorities—in whose I flesh she was in many ways a thorn—j failed to induce her to surrender this ! privilege. When at last she was torn I away from the regiment she was [posted first to Edinburgh and then to Cowglen Military Hospital in Glasgow. She was there when the casualties began to arrive from the Ist Battalion of the Black Watch in Korea, including many from her beloved Pipes and I Drums, and among them the PipeMajor, who had lost a foot and some | fingers—wounds which deprived him of his profession and his hobby. While serving at Cowglen she was stricken with the disease —she diagnosed it herself—from which she was to die six months later. She was buried in the presence of many members of the regiment with which she served, preceded by sbme of the pipers whose music was so'dear to her and whom she personally knew. Colonel Fergusson said at the time of her death that if it was trufe that she was first sent to the Black Watch as a joke, the joke had turned out to be a very good one; and she herself would be gratified to know that she would occupy a nibhe less humble than she would think in the history of the regiment which she was sent to serve and served so faithfully and with such devotion.