Published: Thursday, 28th January, 2010 6:00am

Flag honour 'not possible'

by Sam Berkeley

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COUNCIL chiefs have declined a request to fly The Saltire at half mast in honour of Scottish war heroes killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Chief executive Alan Blackie said dipping the national flag on every municipal building to commemorate each Scottish soldier's death "would not be possible" but hinted an exception could be made for local servicemen.

Mr Blackie had responded to a letter from Derek Edmunds - a Dunbar community councillor - who appealed for fallen Scottish soliders to be publicly recognised by the council.

The local authority's top official stressed that marking a military death solely in Dunbar and not the rest of the county would "not be acceptable".

But Derek Edmunds was left unimpressed.

"Mr Blackie did not explain why it would be unacceptable [for Dunbar alone to lower the flag] and why it was not possible [to administer across the county]. I would have expected an explanation.

"The general feeling [of Dunbar Community Council] was that we should make a gesture to recognise to loss of a serving soldier."

Speaking at a community council meeting, chairman Stephen Bunyan said hoisting flags on Dunbar Town House could be "quite an exercise" because it required "activity from ground level".

But Herbert Coutts effectively summed up the mood of his colleagues

"If there's a family somewhere in East Lothian who has been bereaved we should look to mark that," he said.

"My feeling would be that we should return to the council and say we recognise there are difficulties in some areas of the county but we should be looking to do this in East Lothian."

And he added: "This business about it being technically difficult [to dip the flag] when you think a life has been taken, is put into perspective."

In a written response to Mr Edmunds, the chief executive Alan Blackie said: "The council is very sympathetic indeed to your suggestion and we have looked into the matter in some detail.

"Whilst there are no objections to your suggestion, it is felt that to do this only in Dunbar would not be acceptable and conversely, to do it on all council buildings across East Lothian would not be possible."