Presentation on the Saturday of Mobilisation Exercise last year. Pte Hayes, L/CpI Sullivan, Pte McCulloch, L/Cpl Woodhall, Pte Collier, L/Cpl Martin, Pte Keal. (Three names not known - ED). Mobilisation Exercise Pte Keal with Major Pearson, O.C. The Regiment - How it works - continued Headquarters & Ogilby Trusts Colonel A. F. Niekirk, TD, DL - Chairman, Colonel J. A. Clemence, TD. Major R. D. Holliday, TD. Major S. Henwood, TD. G. Kellas, Esq. D. Franklin, Esq. <strong>Regimental</strong> Finance Committee consists of: Major Henwood, TD. G. Kellas, Esq. D. Franklin, Esq. whose role is largely of an advisory nature to make recommendations to the other sets of Trustees. 12
Church Parade, 12th November, I989 IT was an unforgettable day if ever there was one, from first sun-up until dusk, a day that stands out in stark contrast to the gloomy, fog-filled days that followed. For me it was to be one of the busiest Sundays to come along for some time, two church parades to attend, and no one any more or any less important than the other. At 0945 hours I report to The Castle to find my No 2, Alan, the Honour-bearer, already in the Robing Room laying out the Councillors’ kit. Finding the caretaker I make myself useful fetching up the Corporation Insignia from the dungeons-the Mace, the Standard of Honour, the Sword.. . and the Cushion. There is just time to rush this across to All Saints Church, position it in the Mayor’s Pew, (it’s for his prayer-book, not his . ...) then return in haste for 1015 robing. 1025, and the Councillors are still arriving in dribs and drabs. A dozy, idle lot these Councillors! Rank hath its privileges I suppose, but these don’t include making the Mayor and his serjeants late for Parade. 1030, time to robe the Mayor - the scarlet, ermine-trimmed robe itself, medals pinned on the left (prominent among them his Burma Star), gold linked Chain of Office, white gloves, hat. 1030, and the Councillors are ready, the Town-Clerk is ready, and the Mayor is ready. But I’m not. Thirty seconds will do it - plain royal-blue robe, white gloves, tricorn hat (the latter placed firmly lest a perverse wind should blow it off again). Take up . . . The Mace, that most precious of symbols, pre-Commonwealth, and bearing the cypher of Charles I. Take post . . . left front and three paces from the Mayor, George the Swordbearer on my right, Alan front-centre, the two staffbearers preceding all. Behind the Mayor and the Town Clerk, the Councillors. March on . . . at a nod from the Town Clerk, we shuffle off without a word of command, heavy infantry pace, through the Castle gates and into Parliament Square. We approach the War Memorial without hazard since the traffic on nearby roads has all but ceased with the heavy police guard on the roundabouts. The bells of All Saints are ringing a muffled peal; there is a large crowd already gathered round the War Memorial as well as the usual representations from 4 Company, 5th Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, the Royal British Legion, The Army Cadet Force, the Sea Cadets, Scouts and Guides. 1050, and with the opening of the first hymn the Mayor steps forward onto the War Memorial to lay his wreath. George and I follow him to the steps, then turn facing inwards, inclining both Mace and Sword to touch, a symbolical barring of the way. Over the next five minutes dozens of other wreaths are placed at the foot of the Obelisk from service organisations as well as private mourners. 1100, the bells have by this time fallen silent as the lone bugler plays Last Post, and the Honour is dipped along with the Royal British Legion standards. For two minutes there is an unaccustomed silence over this otherwise busy town square. Then Reveille - the standards are raised aloft, the Catafalque Party come smartly to ‘The Present’ at a barked word of command from the Parade Commander. The sun is warm and sweat is beginning to trickle down my back -just like the old days, it seems. Half an hour later, with the ‘march-past’ over, we are in the church, already full to capacity as the Mayoral procession proceeds down the Nave, the Mayor to take his usual place in the front pew, Town Clerk and Councillors in strict order of precedence beside and behind him, while we, the acolytes as it were, to our own place beneath the War Memorial to The Hertfordshire Regiment with its 1,000 plus names. Above the Choir hang the King’s/Queen’s and the <strong>Regimental</strong> Colours, which were laid up here in 1954 and 1967, on the latter occasion by H.M. Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, Honorary Colonel. The service that follows is moving and sincere, but thankfully for me, short. By 1230 as I put the last of the Insignia back in the Castle dungeons, I am already calculating time and space to H-Hour . . . 1500. Axis of advance . ..A10, A1000 or A1(M)? At close on l300 I get back home with just sufficient time to water the horse, gather the clan, and head off again, lunch in transit. As well we chose the Al(M) I think to myself, as we roar through Edgware 25 minutes later. We breeze around the Brent Cross Flyover onto the North Circular, confident of an early arrival at Pont Street. But just then my navigating officer encounters a ‘dead-spot’ resulting in our leaving the North Circular by the wrong slip-road and putting us in the vicinity of Cricklewood railway yards. ‘British Rail regrets . . .’ Extrication takes some time, but we need not worry overmuch. At 1430 Knightsbridge hoves into view and five minutes later we are parked up a cosy side street close to St. Columbas. After ten minutes usefully spent renewing acquaintances with the Niekirks, the Robinsons and such like, we hear the distant thump of the bass-drum, and with it, after a space, the thin reedy shrill of the piobmhors (pipes is such a boring word). The eldest cranes his neck with mine to locate the source of the sound, while the youngest runs to Mummy for reassurance! The velvet drapes and Laura Ashley print curtains of every house in Pont Street flick back in unison as the procession sweeps past - ‘G’ Company, at their best; and the cadets - so many of them, and so, so smartly turned out! The bright interior and lofty simplicity of St. Columbas is refreshing after the heavy Victorian Gothic of All Saints. Here the tall windows emit the pale light of midafternoon, with the sun already out of sight behind the red-brick and white stucco mansions of Belgravia. In such an atmosphere of height and light, with the colourful Arms of the <strong>Scottish</strong> shires decorating the walls, it is difficult to re-create visions of suffering and death, even when one remembers that St. Columbas stands on the site 13
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