100 years ago today – Percy Toplis, the Monocled Mutineer, escapes from Tomintoul
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Working class hero or unscrupulous dodger?
The historical debate still rages about Percy Toplis, the 'Monocled Mutineer'.
A rank-and-file soldier who frequently posed as an officer, Toplis has been portrayed in a classic TV series as the ringleader of one of the British Army's largest ever insurrections.
What is certain is that this colourful and controversial figure spent his last few days alive at this remote bothy which stands a few miles out of Tomintoul near the A939 road towards the Lecht.
On June 1, 1920, a farmer saw smoke rising from its chimney and went to the village policeman.
Together the two men returned to the scene.
Approaching the bothy, they found Toplis sitting inside by a fire.
Toplis, who had deserted from the military five weeks earlier, was still in possession of a Webley mk VI revolver.
He fired the gun and wounded both the farmer and policeman, then fled on a bicycle.
The rakish life story of Percy Toplis had begun 23 years earlier with his birth in Derbyshire during 1897.
His parents were unable to support him and he was instead handed over to his grandparents.
An unruly pupil who was frequently caned at school, by the age of 11 Toplis was already getting into more serious trouble.
Charged with obtaining two suits from a tailor by deception – one of which he pawned for nine shillings – he was sentenced to a birching.
Expelled at the age of 13, he became a blacksmith's apprentice at a local coal mine.
However, following an argument with the pit manager, Toplis left and took to an itinerant life in Scotland.
The following year after being arrested at Annan for the non-payment of two train tickets, he was sentenced to ten days in Dumfries Prison.
In 1915, the year after the outbreak of the First World War, an under-age Toplis joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and served as a stretcher bearer, his first active duty being at the Battle of Loos.
With his unit he was later involved in the infamous landings at Gallipoli.
A four-part TV series written by Boys From The Blackstuff author Alan Bleasdale aired on the BBC during the mid-1980s.
The Monocled Mutineer portrayed Toplis as a sympathetic character who, back in September 1917, had led an insurrection which involved between 4000 and 10,000 British and Anzac soldiers.
The troops were protesting at the inhumane and unjust conditions at the Étaples military camp in France.
However, the series – great drama though it was – proved highly controversial at the time, not least because there is no evidence that Toplis was ever at the camp.
But on leave during the hostilities Toplis definitely did make a typically flamboyant return to his hometown.
Posing as Captain Toplis DCM, he received a champagne reception from local dignitaries, during which he regaled an appreciative audience with numerous tales of his heroic battlefield exploits.
The visit caused such a stir that his picture and several of his wartime anecdotes made it into the pages of The Nottingham Evening Post.
Several years later that photograph would be used by the police for his "wanted" poster.
Deciding that he had witnessed more than enough carnage, Toplis decided not to return to the front.
Instead he moved to London, where he saw out the rest of the war posing as a Sergeant Major and even as a General, bouncing cheques wherever he went.
Sentenced to two years in prison for fraud, he somehow managed to rejoin the Army in 1920.
Stationed near Salisbury Plain, he was soon selling rationed fuel on the black market and wearing a colonel's uniform when he visited women in town.
As part of his disguise Toplis often liked to sport a gold monocle.
On April 24, 1920, he went AWOL again.
At 9pm that same evening, local taxi driver Sidney George Spicer was found dead from a gunshot wound.
The inquest into the death returned a verdict of wilful murder by Percy Toplis.
Facing execution if caught, Toplis first fled to Wales before heading to Scotland and ending up in the bothy at Tomintoul.
On May 11 he turned up at The Temperance Hotel in Inverness, signing in under a false name.
Mixing freely with the other guests, he entertained them on the piano and explained that he had been in Russia and was now looking for a job.
His musical repertoire included the Russian national anthem.
However within days of his arrival, the hotel proprietor became suspicious and confronted Toplis.
"It strikes me there is a mystery about you, young man."
Toplis quickly left the establishment, journeying as far afield as Lochrosque before returning to the bothy in Moray.
Having wounded the policeman and farmer, Toplis cycled all the way from Tomintoul to Aberdeen.
Now the subject of nationwide manhunt, he caught a train to Carlisle, where he arrived on June 5, 1920.
The next day a police constable questioned a man in "partial military dress" but quickly retreated when threatened with a revolver.
Three officers and a civilian armed with a pistol brought back from the war caught up with Toplis several hours later.
As Toplis attempted to flee he was shot dead.
After the inquest he was buried in an unmarked grave.
However the belongings found on the 23-year-old's body were handed to Penrith and Eden Museum where they are still on display to this day.
They include a gold monocle.
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