Concluding this article, the first part of which appeared in the Christmas 2018 issue
Service in Egypt
We left Korea as a battalion during the rainy season in July for a new posting to a camp on the Bitter Laes in the canal zone of Egypt. This too was an active service posting, for which some 50 years after the event, we received the British General Service campaign medal with clasp Canal Zone. Field Marshall Viscount Montgomery was our Colonel in Chief and we paraded as a battalion for him on his first post war visit to Egypt and his El Alamein success. I was, for a brief 3 hours, his ADC with instructions to detain him at the CO’s House until 2 minutes before 11am so that he would promptly arrive on the parade ground to receive the General Salute and then inspect his Regiment, the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
Early November, my peer group and I flew home to England arriving at Stansted. I reported to Budbrooke Barracks from whence my two years had commenced and left for home, more of a man, I suspect, than the boy that left home.
Territorial Army Service
We were obliged, under the terms of our service, to train with the TA for three and a half years. Our TA battalion, 7th Bn the Royal Warwickshire Regiment TA sent out call up notices in July 1955 to attend a two-week summer camp at Fylingdale Moor, near Scarborough. The weather and scenery were fantastic. Later that year, compulsory attendance was waived and, for the next ten years, I continued to serve as a volunteer.
Here are some of the highlights:
Carrying the Regimental Colour on 23 March 1956, when a Guard of Honour was provided for the Queen, when she came to Coventry to lay the foundation stone for the new Coventry Cathedral and in May 1962, when the Queen returned for its consecration;
A Guard of Honour where I carried the Queen’s Colour for the Queen Mother in 1955, when she came to Warwick to unveil new County Council offices.
On Sunday, 22 June 1958 in Hyde Park, London carrying the Queen’s Colour for the Golden Jubilee Parade marking the founding of the Territorial Army in 1908.
Career Path 1955 onwards
I used for 40 years my industry training as a production engineer on Export sales in Europe and the then Northern block, where attention to detail was of great importance. These foundations enabled me to embrace computers and develop computer literacy to bring about clerical productivity gains within Social Services. I worked for them for ten years following redundancy from the defence industry, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the drying up of large MoD orders.
Andrew Clark
