Alfred Anderson ( veteran ) Alfred Anderson ( 25 June 1896 – 21 November 2005 ) was a Scottish joiner and veteran of the First World War . He was the last known holder of the 1914 Star ( the Old Contemptibles ) , the last known combatant to participate in the 1914 World War I Christmas truce , Scotland ' s last known World War I veteran , and Scotland ' s oldest man for more than a year . WW I experiences . In October 1914 Anderson left his home and , with the 1 / 5th ( Angus and Dundee ) Battalion of the Black Watch , travelled by train from Dundee to Southampton and took a ferry to Le Havre . The regiment mainly recruited in Angus , so Anderson was surrounded by a group of friends with whom he had joined the Territorial Force in 1912 ( aged 16 ) , he thought he was going on a grand adventure ; they had volunteered to go and fight on the Western Front . On 24 December 1914 and 25 December 1914 , his unit was billeted in a farmhouse away from the front line . He vividly remembered the day and once said : I remember the silence , the eerie sound of silence . Only the guards were on duty . We all went outside the farm buildings and just stood listening . And , of course , thinking of people back home . All I ' d heard for two months in the trenches was the hissing , cracking and whining of bullets in flight , machinegun fire and distant German voices . But there was a dead silence that morning , right across the land as far as you could see . We shouted ' Merry Christmas ' , even though nobody felt merry . The silence ended early in the afternoon and the killing started again . It was a short peace in a terrible war . The following year the 1 / 5th Battalion fought at the Battles of Neuve Chapelle and Loos . He became batman to his platoon commander Lieutenant Ian Bruce - Gardyne MC , and also briefly to Captain Fergus Bowes - Lyon , brother of the Queen Mother . Anderson was brave and cool and he would often go out at night with Bruce - Gardyne into no - man ' s land to listen for enemy activity such as tunnelling or troop movements . On one of these night - time sorties Anderson was wounded in the back of the neck and shoulder by shrapnel from shellfire in 1916 — in the slang of the time a " Blighty " ( a wound serious enough to necessitate a recuperation in Britain ) . After recovering at a hospital in Norfolk he became an infantry instructor at a camp near Ripon , rising to the rank of staff sergeant by the end of the war . It was during his time as an instructor that he married Susanna Iddison . After the war , he took her back to Scotland and recommenced life as a joiner in his father ' s business . WW II . Anderson was placed in command of a detachment of Home Guard in the Second World War . After that war he was elected chairman of the local branch of the Royal British Legion . Modern . He was awarded the Légion d ' honneur in 1998 as were all First World War veterans who fought on French soil . In 2003 , when his service as batman to Fergus Bowes - Lyon ( who was killed in 1915 ) came out , Prince Charles went to visit him . Charles is the great nephew of Fergus Bowes - Lyon . His wife died in 1979 and he moved to Alyth to be near his youngest daughter . Six weeks before his own death he moved to Mundamalla Nursing Home , where he died in November 2005 at the age of 109 . At his death , he was Scotland ' s oldest man . He died just a few weeks after featuring in the BBC One documentary " The Last Tommy " , which interviewed some of the last surviving First World War British Army veterans ( nicknamed Tommy or Tommy Atkins ) . The widower , who had five children , said he had lost count of his grandchildren and great - grandchildren . He was actually survived by four children , ten grandchildren , 18 great - grandchildren , and two great - great grandchildren . A biography ( " Alfred Anderson : A Life in Three Centuries " ) was published in 2002 , and a bust of him stands on display at the public library in Alyth . About Christmas Anderson said :