I thank Liz Smith for bringing this members’ business debate to the chamber today.

I am slightly nervous standing here, because my ex-brigade commander, Brigadier Garry Barnett, is sitting up in the public gallery. I would just like to say to him that I have spent time in the Parliament trying to convince everyone that I was a good soldier. Brigadier, your memories of all the good things that happened in your brigade were, of course, down to me—I do not know who was responsible for the bad things. It is delightful to see you all here today and to look back on the Black Watch.

It is probably quite odd for a Household Cavalry man and for somebody who represents the Highlands to be standing here paying tribute to the Black Watch. We are now joined as one, but maybe there is a certain amount of rivalry, as there was before. There is no doubt that, as an ex-soldier, I have a huge amount of respect for all the work that the Black Watch has done during our long history, including our recent history, especially in Korea, Kenya, Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and Iraq. Huge areas of our history have relied on the Black Watch.

I would like to talk about one particular member of the Black Watch who I find quite interesting. I am sure that I am going to get this story wrong, but I did as much research as I could on William Speakman-Pitt, who served in Korea in 1951. He was a Victoria cross winner and, I think, a worthy one. Let us look at his history.

On 4 November 1951, when things were particularly difficult, he filled his pockets with grenades and charged the Chinese, hurling his grenades until they ran out. He then ran back to his lines, collected more grenades and some of his colleagues, and charged back to the Chinese lines, throwing more hand grenades to break up their charge. Sadly, that did not work, so they had to resort to throwing anything they had, which appeared to be mess tins, cans and a large amount of beer bottles. I am reliably informed by the record that those beer bottles came to be in the Black Watch lines purely to be filled with water so that they could cool the machine guns—how they were emptied was not actually clear in the dispatches. William was obviously a worthy VC winner.

I have seen other acts of bravery in the Black Watch history, and that is one that I like. I have heard that William was represented as beer-bottle Bill, the VC winner. I do not know whether that is right, but I am sure that the brigadier will correct me afterwards. He was a worthy winner. People like him typify the valiant soldiers who have served in the Black Watch. When I was a soldier in the British Army, which I was for 12 years, I would have liked to have had the Black Watch at my side, but not always to have had a brigade commander from the Black Watch in charge of me.