After receiving the Victoria Cross, Findlater supplemented his Army pension by performing at music halls, much to the outrage of the military establishment, but after growing scandal he retired to take up farming in Banffshire in 1899.

[1] The Gordons, in common with other Highland regiments of the time, maintained a pipe band in each battalion for both ceremonial and military purposes; the pipers were trained infantrymen, and accompanied the main force on operations.

The following year, the 1st Battalion was assigned as part of the force for the Tirah campaign, an expedition into the mountains to secure the Khyber Pass and the northern approaches to India.

[3] On 20 October 1897, an attempt by a British force to take the strongly held Dargai Heights was beaten back, leaving three battalions pinned down under heavy fire from above and unable to withdraw.

[1] 'During the attack on the Dargai Heights on 20 October 1897, Piper Findlater, after being shot through both feet and unable to stand, sat up, under a heavy fire, playing the Regimental March to encourage the charge of the Gordon Highlanders.

'[5]The Gordons' charge at Dargai had caught the imagination of the British public, and the romantic description of the wounded piper encouraging his comrades on was perhaps the most famous element of it.

Whilst recovering, Findlater received a large number of public donations, including sets of bagpipes, and by at least one account, a proposal of marriage.

Within the year, however, his fame began to turn sour; he was implicated in a contentious breach of promise lawsuit in late 1898, which led to heckling at his Scottish performances,[6] and to avoid further scandal left the country to tour the United States and Canada.

[1] Whilst his moment of personal celebrity was fleeting, Findlater remained a popular figure in the public memory, continuing to be a subject of artwork and stories for some years.