1 SANDYHILLS schoolboy Bill Millin would grow up to be one of the most famous figures in Scottish war history, immortalised in film, song and even in bronze when a statue was built in his honour in France.

The D-Day landings, June 1944

The D-Day landings, June 1944

2 Born in July, 1922, ‘Piper Bill’ was the man who played the bagpipes as Lord Lovat and his commandos stormed the Normandy shores on D Day. Dodging bullets and bombs, he marched up and down Sword Beach, earning the respect of his comrades and the Germans watching. Later, German prisoners confessed they had not shot him because they genuinely thought he was mad.

3 A talented musician, Millin was taken on by Lovat as his personal piper in the 1st Special Service Brigade. On D Day in 1944, he was only 21, and wore the kilt his father wore in Flanders during WWI. Millin and Lovat remained friends for many years, and when Lord Lovat died in 1995, it was Millin who made the long journey from Devon, where he had moved years earlier, to play a lament at the funeral.

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4 In 1962, Millin's bravery was immortalised in The Longest Day, the film based on the Normandy landings, when he was played by Pipe Major Leslie de Laspee. There is a statue in his honour in the Normandy town of Colleville-Montgomery and his outstanding courage was also portrayed in a set of stamps issued by the Isle of Man on the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings, In 2006, Devon folk singer Shelagh Allen composed the song The Highland Piper in his honour.

5 The pipes were blown up by a mortar bomb four days after D-Day but Piper Bill survived the war and moved to Dawlish where he lived with his wife Margaret. He died in August 2010, aged 88.