Your Royal Highness,
Alderman,
Treasurer,
Chief Steward,
Fellow Old Blues, Colleagues of yesteryear, Honoured Guests and those of you who are still pupils at CH,
Good Evening.

Last year, your then Chairman, described his past recollection of these dinners perhaps prophetically when he said: “after an obsequious introduction, up would stand an overweight, ageing, balding, white haired – what was left of it – red faced old Fogy who would drone on for what seemed an eternity."

Well, Geoffrey, where ever you are hiding, just remember, it was you who wrote and invited me… Were we perhaps in another place and more ‘Amicably’ disposed, I could fine you a bottle or ten!

We are privileged tonight to be supping in this magnificent Hall belonging to the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers. We have our Christ’s Hospital silver displayed and we are blessed by the presence of our Royal President. For most of us I suspect that such evenings are rare.

Your Royal Highness, as Chairman this evening, it is a great pleasure for me and indeed for all of us, to have you with us again. We welcomed you to Horsham, on 7th March, this year, to celebrate your thirty years as our President. We welcome you once more this evening and thank you for honouring us with your presence.

The majority of us here tonight have had the good fortune to have spent our youth cloistered within the ‘Religious, Royal and Ancient Foundation.’ We have all benefited, in our various ways, from the remarkable ethos of both Christ’s Hospital and Hertford. I am personally grateful for the opportunity to propose this Toast in order, at last, to be able to say thank you to that Foundation.

In preparing myself for this evening I have been conscious of words written by my old friend, the late, Professor Jack Morpurgo, when he revised the Christ’s Hospital book. A number of you may be familiar with them:

The besetting sin of Old Blues is an inordinate affection for relating reminiscences of their school days. In early manhood such stories tend to the Rabelaisian, in middle life they become apocryphal, while age at times transcends the inventive faculties of a Munchausen.

When I reflect upon those halcyon days in Sussex the temptation is certainly there to relate fond memories.

When I left ‘Housey’, for me it was the feeling of momentum that was all important. I was very fit. I had an open mind, I was keen to learn, hungry for adventure, ready to shoulder responsibility and prepared to get my hands dirty. I just felt that the world was now my oyster. Bullish, yes, but I did understand that a measure of humility and humour don’t go amiss when with people, Life at Housey had taught me I that. I knew that I would regret leaving the cloistered life that I loved but I needed to move on not least to earn some money. I had also heard that there were girls out-there!

But despite Morpurgo let me first return to my early beginnings in order to set all of this in context.

Thinking back to your childhood, can any of you, from either Horsham or Hertford, recall your very first day at school? I had difficulty but luckily I discovered a photograph to jog my memory.

I arrived in Prep A with my mother, in September 1942. My father, in the Royal Navy, had been killed earlier in the war. I had been at a Grammar School in deepest Yorkshire and I had, so I am told, a broad north country accent.

The photograph shows a forlorn little Yorkshire lad with red hair parted in the middle, standing on the lawn outside Prep A. All three buttons of a sports jacket done-up, pockets bulging, short shorts, stockings round my ankles. I look miserable. I do remember that my mother had been crying and I must have had the early pangs of home-sickness myself.

For me the size of the school with its large then ivy-clad buildings was forbidding. I was in awe. The more so because I had just met my Senior Housemaster, M H Jones, a Welsh Rugby player of renown, built like an ox. Some here tonight will remember him.

This was reality and at nine years old, fear and emotion had begun to take over. I knew that I was in at the ‘deep end’ and my life was about to change. My early school reports reflect this. Lazy. Must try harder. He must do what the Monitors tell him. I am sure that I was trying but I had never done homework before, I had never read a book and I certainly had no understanding of what discipline meant. In no way was I prepared for life at a Boarding School.

I make this point because for me, although I didn’t realise it at the time, this was the beginning of my career. I had been given an opportunity and whether I liked it or not I was being made to get on with it. I hated it at first but as time wore on I began to realise just how privileged I was.

I would like to suggest that I had some great motivation. That is not so. Obviously I wanted to progress in order to impress my mother and family but I do not recall having had any great ambition.

Because of my RMS Presentation I was destined for a career in the Royal Navy, through Dartmouth, when I reached my sixteenth birthday. My Housemaster, Lionel Carey, had, however, persuaded me that my maths were poor and that the Navy were highly technical. Gray, you can’t count! Regardless of my Maths, how sensible he was, for me to have left CH then would have been crazy. I had, in any event, already decided that I wanted to go to Sandhurst and from then on, I never wavered.

As some of my contemporaries may remember, those of us who declared our intent to pursue a Career in one of the Services, were almost sidelined and regarded, or so it seemed to us, as academic ‘drop-outs.’ No one seemed quite sure what to do with us. We had passed our exams but couldn’t yet leave for our destinations. We were banished to be in a Form called Deputy Grecians ‘D’ .. ..euphemistically nicknamed “The General Dregs."

Luckily academic status didn’t matter because most in the Form were already well established in the School as senior House Monitors, House Captains or School Monitors as well as being in the 1st XV or Cricket XI. Indeed in some ways it was an advantage not to be pressed academically.

This pattern slowly began to change towards the end of the decade, as Teaching Staff, who joined after the War, became more influential. Also as Old Blue successes were seen to be significant at Sandhurst and at the RAF College at Cranwell, with many of our Officer Cadets achieving Under Officer status and a Sword of Honour.

In the early 1950’s (after I had left) the persistence of those who supported “The Dregs” was rewarded with its first Grecian.

I am pleased to tell you that none of these intra-school politics had any adverse effect on my feelings toward the Establishment. Just the opposite. I had been given all the help and encouragement that I needed to achieve a ‘place’ at The Military Academy, and I felt confident in myself. That was all I could have asked for.

There were many who did try to advise me against a career in the Army, especially colleagues who had gone on from School to do their National Service. I had a number of long letters sent to dissuade me. Two of the authors, I see are dining with us tonight.

Years later when I arrived in Malaya, as a newly commissioned 2/Lt, we trained on Singapore Island. What surprised me at that my first meeting, with all officers present, was that no mention was made of our impending move ‘up-country’ to deal with the Insurgency, which was the reason we were in Malaya. The CO seemed to have no sense of operational urgency.

We eventually deployed to Company Areas in Johore and I had a Platoon of about 40 National Servicemen. I spent the next eighteen months on a miscellany of Jungle Operations or we secured Kampongs (Villages) in the Rubber Plantations. It was a rough, scary, unhealthy life, tedious at times active at others. I had some successes, took casualties, learned a lot about myself and about leading young men. My Company Commander never visited me nor anyone else. I found that strange.

And then fortune smiled upon me. Whilst at Sandhurst I had completed a Parachute Course, therefore after 18 months commissioned service, I was automatically called upon to volunteer for Seconded Duty with Airborne Forces.

This was what I really wanted to do so I volunteered. I know that I did not endear myself to the CO and my departure from The Regiment was not very popular. I returned to England and after re-doing both the Fitness and Parachute Courses I joined the Second Parachute Battalion.

Two months later, the Commanding Officer left, there was a reshuffle within the battalion and I was an acting Major commanding a Company. I was 23 and I knew that I had made the right decision!

I loved my Lid County Regiment and I still do even though, after several amalgamations, they are no longer in the Order of Battle.

The nature of warfare is changing, as is the threat and the army needs young men who are robust and flexible to meet new challenges. I found such men when I joined the Parachute Regiment.

The Parachute Soldier is different. He is carefully selected and his attitude is impressive. He is supremely fit in body and mind which creates a total self confidence.

It is a mixture of these qualities and skills, built around parachuting, that forms a close bond with other colleagues, they know and respect each other. They are totally motivated to win.

When he was Colonel Commandant of The Parachute Regiment Field Marshal Montgomery wrote of them in a forward to the book The Red Beret.

What manner of men are these? They are in fact men apart--every man an Emperor.

Housey and my subsequent Army training had prepared me and I found no difficulty in meeting new challenges, indeed I welcomed them.

In October of 1969 when I was a fresh and very young Battalion Commander, I found myself on the Shankill Road in Belfast, right at the beginning of ‘the troubles’. Civil Disturbance had taken on a new meaning, it was now happening in the UK.

The old Colonial Police guidelines didn’t help us very much when facing an angry mob in a recognisably British street, some of whom were wearing British Army, TA uniform, waving the Union Jack and singing ‘God Save the Queen’ whilst slinging petrol bombs. It was different!

Belfast was a mind-concentrating and taxing city for all of us. That first tour lasted over six months and at the end of it we were in need of a rest.

Inevitably, there are hundreds of ‘war stories’. I have chosen but two because they are true and have a touch of humour.

The first: That same rioting on the Shankhill in 1969.

Two files of the Ulster Constabulary lined up across the road, in their then riot gear wearing day time helmets, facing the mob. I watched as they took eleven casualties from bricks and petrol bombs. We needed to throw away the book and start again.

I was later in the Tennant Street Police Station in Belfast talking with the 55 year old Superintendent of Police. He was crying.

We were discussing possible future tactics when a Constable came in and said, “Superintendent, Mr Paisley is here to see you.”

“Tell him I’ll be with him in a moment.”

At which the ‘Big Man’ strode into the room.

The Superintendent was annoyed.

I said “Good evening Mr Paisley, we haven’t met before.”

He looked across and came towards me saying,

“The Reverend Doctor Paisley, if you please Colonel and I’m not sure I shall want to meet with you again.”

Then he leaned forward and said, “Colonel I’ve heard about you. Do you want to be a Brigadier or do you want to be a Corporal, because I can help you.”

I later got to know him well and despite his bombastic bigotry he is one of the few that I met in Northern Ireland that showed any leadership.

The Second: About a four man patrol, called a “Brick.”

It was again in October 1969. Four Parachute soldiers in uniform, wearing the red beret and carrying their weapons. Moving either side of the road. They were led by a tall, heavily built, black Corporal, ex of Uganda. He was called ‘Percy Roach’. He was the only NCO in the battalion known to all by his first name. He had a beaming smile of white teeth which disarmed everyone. The press were everywhere.

Percy spotted an elderly lady having difficulty in crossing the busy Shankill road. He went over to her, spoke, picked her up in his arms, carried her across and put her safely down on the other side.

She looked up at him with wide eyes, gave him a kiss and said: “Be Jesus, the Missionaries sure did a fantastic job on you.”

His beaming smile and the story was on the front page of the Belfast Newsletter the next morning.

I have so far enjoyed a life full of fun and diversity. An exciting 40 years in the Army and I am still savouring a Second Career with Industry in South Wales, which is now into its 17th year.

I owe all of this to the kick start that I was given at Horsham. Not forgetting that it is now nearly 50 years since the most significant event in my life. I married and my wife, Juliette, has “followed the flag” raised three children and put up with all my idiosyncrasies.

I have been blessed with enormous luck. To all of you out there who are still benefiting from this remarkable Foundation, as others here tonight have done. You are being given an opportunity. Grasp it and go forth and make your own luck. There will be plenty of hard work but there is nothing that you can not achieve.

I would now like you all to rise to drink the Housey Toast.

The Religious Royal and Ancient Foundation of Christ’s Hospital may those prosper who love it, and may God increase their number.

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