Yeomen of England

by Ken Tout

  Having moved from 17-pounder Valentines to Ferret and Dingo armoured cars, the Northants had now switched again to learning Royal Engineers’ skills such as bridge building. The then Sergeant Bill Hornsey was thrilled to visit the Pied Piper’s City of Hamlin where, because of the Cold War, the camping Territorials had to walk out in civilian clothes. Their training consisted of bridging the fast-flowing River Weser:

  At this point the Weser was about 180 to 200 feet wide and needed about 25 pontoons to cross the river. The pontoons were attached to each other with rods and panel pins, each pin weighing roughly 2lbs, hammered home with a sledge hammer. I believe we dropped more pins in the drink than we hammered in. But we achieved the crossing in one day! We then practised manoeuvring a heavy ferry up and down river and for this we had to wear lifejackets. Then back to camp for showers and dinner. Then a two mile walk to a pub, ‘The Ice Box’. A small very dark room, sawdust on the floor and a real spittoon, very good beer in ovenware steins with hinged pewter lids. And an ENORMOUS STEAK between two huge slices of bread for 3.50 DM – about 32p!

  SSM Les Warren parades NY squadron in front of Northampton Drill Hall before a convoy to Wyke Regis camp, 1962. (Hornsey, NYA)

  For the 1962 camp the regiment travelled in convoy from the Drill Hall in Northampton to their annual camp at Wyke Regis in Dorset. It was a formidable convoy consisting of about thirty large vehicles. This included a Ferret scout car, a Humber armoured personnel carrier, a 10-ton Leyland truck, a Commer Tipper, twelve Bedford RL lorries (later known as Green Goddesses and used by the Fire Services), twelve Austin Champs (pre-Land Rover overland vehicles) and other Commer 3-ton lorries.

  In the 1960s, in spite of the Russian threat, there was talk of scrapping the TA altogether. A Northampton newspaper reporter went to visit the NY camp at Halton, Lancashire, as part of a campaign using the slogan ‘Hands off the TA!’ He was invited to a champagne breakfast in the officers’ mess but found that TA camps were not all champagne as he was dragged out on a night exercise:

  We made our way up the moors where the sappers had been dropped in unknown terrain calling for reliable map-reading. The sappers had to camouflage themselves and try to remain invisible to umpires. As the moon rose the temperature dropped to an unseasonable sub-zero level. From their first rendezvous the Yeomen were to make their way in canoes down three miles of the tortuous river Lune into a fast-flowing torrent. On the rushing river the cold light of dawn revealed a frosty mist which swirled across the banks. As the heavy canoes were man-handled back into three tonners it was easy to see morale was high, even after 15 miles skirmishing. You might expect grumbles from part-time soldiers, but these lads were cheerful enough. There is talk of scrapping the Terriers. With so many people having so much fun doing such useful service for their country it would certainly be a great pity.4

  Great pity or not, the Northants lads were to be plunged into a further confusion known as ‘suspended animation’. There is a subtle military distinction between suspended animation and disbandment, but in this case it meant that, instead of functioning as a recognisable regiment or squadron, the NY would be transformed into a ‘cadre’ which, to a civilian’s eye, might look like disappearance. In military terms it means a kind of dormant chrysalis, which might one day be revived (particularly in view of the Defence Ministry’s 2011 intention to increase the Reserve Forces).

  In 1967 a cadre was selected. For a year the NY became A Company, Northamptonshire Regiment, wearing the infantry cap badge but retaining the NY collar dogs, that is to say, double-badged. In 1971 the 7th Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment was formed and the cadre was disseminated into this new unit, with bases ranging from Northampton to Grimsby. The cadre of NY luminaries was allocated out: Ralf Martin (red coat toastmaster at annual dinners) becoming CSM of D Company with W.J. ‘Bill’ Hornsey as his CQMS. Never without his mouth organ, Tanky Turner went on to be CQMS of C Company, and Tanky’s CSM Tim Warr was gradually promoted to major. During this process Bill Hornsey received demobilisation papers as 250 Squadron disappeared. He then, on 1 April 1971, had to volunteer again (the first Yeoman to sign on anew) and served another four years. Throughout these changes he retained his own individual army number, 23902758.

  Almost simultaneously the NY Association, formed to care for the regiment’s veterans, increased in membership as veterans moved towards retirement, with more time to congregate, and as memories became more important. The apparently eternal George Jelley MBE, and later Bill Hornsey, devoted themselves to maintaining the spirit and traditions of the Yeomanry as Hon. Secretaries of the Association. However, at last mortality prevailed: once the longest serving TA soldier, George Jelley was now called to his last parade in the heavens. The NY’s last surviving Great War trooper, Alf Dewison died aged 101. Then, at a London Remembrance Service in 1992 there appeared a Boer War Yeoman, George Ives, aged 111, who must qualify for the oldest Yeoman ever. Yet another Yeoman, Major George Jameson MC, won a place in the Guinness Book of Records as Britain’s oldest bridegroom, aged 102, and living another five years. What is it about Yeomen?

  Meanwhile, as the future of the Yeomanry again became an important parliamentary topic, the 1944 Night March navigator, now Lord Tom Boardman MC, TD, DL, rose to speak in the House of Lords in April 1998, extolling the Yeomanry not only for its prowess in battle but also for its social contribution; quite a change from the antagonistic speeches of members like Mr Hume MP in the 1830s. Lord Tom declared:

  In all my time of being connected with the Territorial Army, I cannot recall any instance when, among all the hundreds of people with whom I have served, anyone has done something which had committed him to a civil court. I know of no drug takers, vandals or similar people in the TA … As regards the offences which bog our courts down at the moment, those who had been trained in the Territorial Army have acquired the discipline that goes with it … They learn on a range of equipment and gain a confidence and maturity which I believe equips them well in whatever role they may take in civil life … I believe that there is a great role in the TA. It is to supplement the reserve forces, as an aid to the civil power and in the social environment it provides.5

  In 1998 an event from the 1920s roused strange echoes in the memories of veterans of the NY. The point-to-point trophy which had been misappropriated by the then Prince of Wales suddenly resurfaced in public in circumstances which made it a television news story. On the death of the Duchess of Windsor, the former prince and king’s widow, the estate was sold off at public auction. Prominent among the contents was the NY cup, which was bought by a still anonymous Texan oil tycoon for the astonishing sum of $60,000 (plus 15 per cent fees, plus 15 per cent US sales tax), and gained worldwide television coverage. NY’s Bill Hornsey appealed through Angela Rippon, the television presenter, for a return of the cup. But, despite its dubious provenance, the Texas purchaser is legally entitled to keep his trophy.

  The NY cup awarded annually for the Pytchley point-to-point, won in 1921 by the Prince of Wales, but which he failed to return in 1922. (NYA)

  After forty-six years, in 2000 former corporal Percy Sumner in Sheffield had a piece of shrapnel removed from his eye. As he had worked in the steel industry (but in an office) the injury was at first thought to be related to his work. But it proved to be the result of the action in which Rex Jackson won the MM at Loon-op-Zand, where Percy’s tank had been hit by a mortar bomb and his face sprayed with shrapnel.

  In February 2005 there came into force a law which might have had a negative bearing on the incipient Yeomanry if it had been enacted in 1794. Fox hunting, ‘as we knew it’, was now banned. Huntsmen like the 5th Earl Spencer, the Duke of Beaufort and Lieutenant Colonel Lord Annaly had brought into the infant Yeomanry some of the finest horses to be found anywhere in the world. Now armoured steel leviathans, and indeed helicopters, had replaced the humble equine mount, and the emancipation of the fox had little bearing on military tactics. Of course, the Pytchley and the Beaufort still ride
, if somewhat ‘foxless’.

  The Yeomanry establishment had now been amalgamated, reduced and confirmed as four regiments. On 1 April 1967 the Royal Yeomanry had been formed from former county regiments, each retaining identity and traditions at squadron level. Then in 1971 there were born the Queen’s Own Yeomanry, armoured reconnaissance, recruiting from northern England, Northern Ireland and Scotland; the Royal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry with Challenger 2 tanks; and the Royal Wessex Yeomanry in the south-west, in a training role on Challenger 2 tanks. Moving into the twenty-first century, Yeomen were trained in ever more specialist roles and were ready to be posted in and alongside regular troops in active roles overseas.

  Some doubt had been expressed about the ability of part-time, annual holiday camp soldiers to be able to cope with modern warfare in its widely varying forms. Experienced soldiers rushed to defend the Terriers, as a certain CSM G.J. Wafer in the 2011 Daily Telegraph letters column:

  My TA infantry company is fully manned, with 14 soldiers about to deploy to Afghanistan. They have endured arduous training and have not been found wanting. They are now fully integrated into platoons in regular battalions and will do the same job – and face the same dangers – as their regular counterparts. Many soldiers in my company have served on operations abroad and some have returned seriously wounded. The TA of today is so far removed from that of [various critics’] experience as to make any comparison meaningless.

  So it was that in 2001 the Royal Yeomanry deployed its W Squadron to Kuwait, with the regiment having been trained for a specialist role in NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical war) defence to support other troops. In 2004 men of the regiment paraded in deep snow in Grantham to be briefed about desert war under the blazing sun of Iraq. Their advance guard arrived in Basra on April Fool’s Day, but it was serious business ahead. Individual roles varied widely: whilst Lieutenant Charlie Field was ‘mentoring the infant Judiciary’ in Basra, Sergeant Mark Consadine ‘spent many happy hours destroying captured weapons’ and Sergeant David Tomlin was creating a personnel database for the local police force which was being rapidly reformed.6

  Among other specialist roles is that of the Sharpshooters (now Kent and County of London Yeomanry Squadron) who, in December 2009, sent Sergeant Barnard, Corporal Faytaren and Lance Corporal Thompson to Afghanistan during Operation Herrick to fulfil the CORTEZ role ‘which is a new intelligence gathering tasking, using the latest camera and sensor technology. It is an exciting role with which the four armoured Yeomanry regiments have been tasked in rotation.’7

  The FANY (Princess Royal’s Volunteer Corps) continue to serve, here practising on the range. (FANY/PRVC)

  The Yeomanry regiments also provide valuable service in other fields of activity, such as representing Britain abroad with great aplomb. The NY was once a squadron of the Inns of Courts Regiment, while the Inns of Court themselves have now modulated into the band of the Royal Yeomanry. One of their missions was to the new Hong Kong where they played at a former Royal Naval station, now a Red Army barracks. It seems that the Chinese were fascinated and enchanted, if not with the overall symphonic tones of the band, then with the ‘husband and wife’ team of percussionists, Graham and Jan Dare, surely a combination never envisaged by William Pitt the Younger.8

  On a more military note, a regular colonel commanding Yeomen in Afghanistan was in no doubt that CSM Wafer’s comments about the Territorials was well founded:

  TA soldiers have proved their commitment to the Army through the sacrifice of enough spare time (weekends and evenings) to cause most Regulars to mutiny on the spot. They have an enthusiasm and commitment to the job that can make us Regulars feel pretty uncomfortable at times. While we are moaning about a tough exercise over a few drinks with a late start on the Monday, the TA soldier will get back late on Sunday, sort out his kit, get ignored by his wife, and get a few hours sleep before another full week of work … I found the TA soldiers I commanded in Afghanistan to be a hugely valuable resource, being friendly and kinetic both within the company and during our various interactions with the local community.9

  It must be noted also that the Women’s Yeomanry, the FANY, continues to thrive. Now renamed the Princess Royal’s Volunteer Corps (FANY/PRVC) it has been extended beyond its original nursing service and has become indispensable in emergency communications work, such as terrorist bombings in the UK and during the South Asia Tsunami of 2004 when it did remarkable work in registering missing persons.

  Meanwhile, back in Northampton, although Sergeant Reg King, or some modern replacement, no longer needs to mark out bed spaces on the floor to accommodate a sudden mass incursion of recruits, the old Drill Hall continues to resound to the batter of boots, now the footwear of a recovery unit of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

  NOTES AND REFERENCES

  1 Various regimental records often accessible from regimental museums.

  2 Reversing author’s own experience as posted from NY to KDGs after VE Day.

  3 Some anecdotes collected by George Jelley as editor of NY magazine.

  4 Northampton Chronicle & Echo.

  5 Hansard.

  6 Royal Yeomanry Journal, 2002.

  7 Sharpshooter, 2010.

  8 Royal Yeomanry Journal, 2004–06.

  9 Amour, 2009.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  UNREMITTING REMEMBRANCE

  (2012 FOR POSTERITY)

  The first return to the graves of long-lost comrades can be awesome but affectionate; eerie but familiar; harrowing but triumphal; provocative but conclusive. There is an aura of expectation that they have been waiting this long, long time for a comrade to come. And the arrival of that comrade brings rest and security at last. There is now some living person present, a comrade, on guard, patrolling, responsible, while they sleep on. Our family: Frank Hickson, George Valentine, Bill Rawlins, Sonny Wellbelove, that unknown Black Watch private …

  There is a compelling urge to step quietly through the lush lawns. Not for fear of disturbing them, for they have lain for forty years dreaming who knows what horrors of sudden oblivion and abandonment. But today is for them, as for us, the moment of reunion, recognition, reconciliation. We are again that unique family who understand what is beyond the comprehension of the ordinary person: the shared fears, perils, shedding of blood, whether trivial or fatal; and the enduring debt owed by us, who were fated to soldier on, to those whom the lottery of war selected to receive the bullet, or shard of shrapnel, or disembodied blast. Our being here today, we who so long went absent about our own selfish affairs, resolves all, leaving them, this tiny group together, content.

  The psychologist will no doubt argue that those sentiments have no substance; are simply in the mind of the intruder into one of the beautiful sanctuaries maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. To the returning comrade it is all very real. Yet for the vast majority of Second World War veterans it would be a very long time before such a visit could become viable, or perhaps even desirable.

  As at the end of the First World War, demobilised veterans of the 1940s, long-serving original Territorials and younger conscripts, were only too anxious to get back to civilian realities, secure a job, perhaps relocate, get married, start a family, patronise a decent local pub or take up church activities, buy a car, beaver on towards a decent pension. Very few ordinary soldiers could contemplate crossing the English Channel at their own expense, much less be able to explore Normandy or the Arnhem corridor or the Ardennes at leisure. And as to a return to El Alamein, Cassino or Burma, the idea was too remote. For most it would be anything up to forty years before the urge and the means to return would coincide.

  Furthermore, the liberated communities, particularly in Normandy, were themselves too devastated to consider welcoming back their unknown liberators. In many villages the front-line troops had passed by without leaving any substantial clues as to their identities. A chance brief encounter with a friendly continental family, such as the farmers who broug
ht flowers to the grave of SSM Sid Turton or Ken Jordan’s hausfrau, however significant an event in a veteran’s memory, did not normally involve an exchange of addresses, much less telephone numbers. And as to hosting and accommodating a large group of visiting veterans, it would be impossible for years to come. In one typical blasted and flamed village, May-sur-Orne, many inhabitants lived in ruined houses for two years before some prefabricated buildings arrived from Sweden. Even then it was eight years before full electricity, gas, drinking water, phone and adequate road facilities had been restored.

  The NY Association, like those of other nominally defunct county regiments, had continued to function effectively after the regiment had passed into suspended animation. It had been headed for a while by wartime luminaries such as Lord George Scott and Lord Tom Boardman, and then by post-war Territorials, Peter Symington, Tim Deakin and latterly Ben Howkins, son of the Casablanca colonel. The main purpose was always to support veterans and widows in their physical, material and social needs. At the same time, and although there was no renewing body of active soldiers, diligent honorary secretaries, the late George Jelley and currently Bill Hornsey, organised regular well-attended annual dinners and other anniversary events.

  Two such events occurred in 1994 and 1999. The first celebrated both the 200th anniversary of the founding of the regiment and the 50th anniversary of the Normandy campaign. More than a hundred members paraded in front of Althorp House, to the music of a cavalry band, and the salute was taken by the 9th Earl Spencer, Sir John Lowther and Lord George Scott. A similar parade through the streets of Northampton in 1999 preceded the ceremony of laying up the regimental guidon for the last time at the Guildhall. Over the years a number of enthusiasts had researched regimental history, among them Harry Cazenove, A.E. Sandy Saunders and Vic Lawrence. More recently a permanent Yeomanry section has been established at Abingdon Park Museum due to the efforts of Sandy Saunders, Bill Bellamy, Bill Hornsey and Tanky Turner. Much information from individual veterans was distilled through the Annual Report and magazine, with the author as editor since the passing of George Jelley. Another veteran, Wally Wall, printed the magazine for many years.