A SERIES of coincidences has helped a former Beath High School teacher trace the family history of a 19 year-old Cowdenbeath soldier who lost his life in the Great War.

Christine Plummer was a teacher at Beath for 39 years and had always had a keen interest in the Great War and it was heightened by the fact that the Dux of the Cowdenbeath secondary school in 1912, had been killed during the conflict.

Christine, who retired two years ago, told Cowdenbeath Rotary Club last Thursday that she wanted to find out more about William Binning and with the help of the internet discovered that his parents had lived in Stenhouse Street.

A look at the phone book gave her a lead with four Binnings living in the town. Surely one could be a relative.

She wrote to a Binning living in Foulford Road and it started the ball rolling for her. “The lady was a mine of information,” she said, “She also put me in touch with another relative, in Kirkcaldy, and he had photographs and so much material that I soon was able to build up a picture of this young man who went to war.

“William went to study to be a doctor at Edinburgh University when he left Beath, but when the war started he answered Lord Kitchener’s clarion call and in 1915 joined up.

“He joined the 9th Battalion of the Cameronians as a 2nd Lieutenant, after they lost almost all their officers at the Battle of Loose and was soon at Ypres.

“He was seen as a bright young man who made a big impact on his comrades and he wrote home regularly with his parents kept right up to date with how he was coping with life in the trenches.” But on 22nd April 1916 he was involved in an attack when he was hit by machine gun fire which struck him in the abdomen.

“He was assisted to safety by another Cowdenbeath man who had come across him in No Man’s Land but such were his wounds the doctors had to tell him his chances of survival were slim,” added Christine.

“He died on 24th April at 3.05pm and in his letter to his loved ones which all soldiers were asked to write before they took on a major offensive, he told his parents, ‘I tried to do my duty’. Every time I looked at the Dux board at the Beath I thought about this young man who had so much to look forward to in his life but who was cut down in the Great War.” And last Thursday Christine found another missing link in her Binning chain when club secretyary David Hunter, pictured with President Lesley Porter, welcoming her to the meeting, informed her that William’s dad Sidney was a founder member of Cowdenbeath Rotary Club.