ROYAL BRITISH LEGION
WHEATLEY AND DISTRICT BRANCH
NEWSLETTER APRIL 2010
New members. A very warm welcome to our two most recent members, Peter Dennis and Geoff Cherry. Peter served in the Royal Air Force and Geoff in the Army, in our local regiment, the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. We look forward to welcoming you, gentlemen, to our next meeting. We now have 66 members and the committee wishes to thank everyone for their support since the Branch was re-formed our years ago this month.
Next meeting. Thursday, 15th April at 11.30 for 12 noon at the New Club. Our speaker will be a former member of the dreaded R.A.F. Police, the Snowdrops. Reg Lamb actually began his service career in the Army as a National Serviceman, in the East Surrey Regiment. On completing his two years, he decided fairly soon to try the forces again and decided on the Royal Air Force, serving for twelve years in the Service Police. He is a most entertaining speaker with wonderful and amusing stories of his varied experiences. If you ever encountered the Royal Military Police, Regimental Police, the RAF Police or their Royal Navy equivalent (and surely everybody did) you will enjoy listening to Reg.
National Memorial Arboretum visit. We shall be asking you at the next meeting if you are interested in visiting the Arboretum, travelling in members’ cars. With drivers being able to take two or three passengers, it should be possible to have a reasonable number to make it worthwhile. It would also be much cheaper than going by coach. Ideally we would like to go during Armed Forces Week, 19th-26th June but that would depend on the Arboretum which may be swamped with visitors at that time. If we decide to present ourselves there as a group, we will be given an introductory talk in the Millennium Chapel of Peace and Forgiveness, a very beautiful building. If you are interested in this visit but are unable to come to the meeting, please let anyone on the committee know.
RBL Lapel Badges. I still have three of these left from a previous order. The price is £4.10, so if you would like one, please let me know. Also available from RBL HQ, via me, are berets, cap badges, ties, and lots of other items.
Newsletter Certificate now on display. The certificate awarded to the Branch at the County Conference in January for coming third in the Newsletter Competition is now on display in ‘our’ corner in the New Club. The Duncan Cup, which we have for a year, cannot yet be displayed as it had come loose on its plinth before we had it and so has to be mended first!
Armed Forces Day, 26th June. The Committee decided that it would not work to try and repeat last year’s event in the Merry Bells and so are hoping instead to arrange a band concert sometime during that week. More information later.
June meeting. Date: 17th June. At the Lord Mayor’s Reception for those who attend the repatriation parades, we were approached by Cpl. Dave Paintin, who spoke to us two years at the Railway. Dave has just returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan and has readily agreed to be our speaker
at this meeting.
Visit to the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum. This is at Caversfield in Bicester and is a fantastic place. Although quite small it is packed with exhibits of all kinds, mainly relating to our very distinguished local regiment, and its predecessor and successor regiments. The Regiment’s archives are there as well with a wealth of printed and manuscript material including, now, information about the role of Wheatley men in the two World Wars which we presented to them after the Armed Forces Day display last year. Again, at the next meeting, we shall be asking for a show of interest with a view to arranging a visit.
NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 2010
1. Next meeting. On Thursday, 18th February at 11.30 a.m. for 12 noon at the New Club. Our speaker will be David Youd who will be talking about ‘The Forgotten War: the Cyprus Emergency, 1955 1959". David served in Cyprus as an officer in the Royal Ulster Rifles during this period and returned to the island in November to take part in the dedication of the British Cyprus Memorial which commemorates the 371 British servicemen who lost their lives during the emergency.
2. Membership. This now numbers 64 and to mark an increase of 17 in 2009, the Branch has won the Duncan Cup for the second time in its short re-formed existence. This is a county award and is made to the branch with its largest increase in members during the year. Roger Bell represented the branch at the County Conference in January and reported that he was asked how we did it! The branch last won it in 2007. This time we beat Chalgrove and Chipping Norton into second and third place.
3. Newsletter award. The branch came third in the best newsletter category and received a framed certificate.
All we need now is a wall to hang it on. And first prize next year, of course. Woodstock and Henley were first and second respectively.
4. Poppy Appeal, 2009 - £10,172.02. This was the fantastic total raised in the Wheatley area by our team volunteers, including members of the Royal British Legion branch. We had almost 70 helpers during the two weeks, including those who do house-to-house collections in Great Milton, Tiddington and Waterstock, and the Army Cadets at Asda on the final Saturday. We had the benefit this year of a whole day collecting at the Welcome Break Service Area at Junction 8 on the M40, as well as a substantial donation, via a local Wheatley resident, from the Westbourne Masonic Lodge. Our core collection was again at Asda where we collected £3,952, up by 7%, with our local shops and pubs bringing in £1,230, much as last year. The day at Welcome Break brought in an extra £1,130 compared with the previous static collection (i.e. boxes on the counter in the shop) and the villages and local churches produced just over £1,760. The Poppy Appeal goes on up to 30th September this year so any further monies raised by our special events will add to the final total. Roger Bell, Honorary Poppy Organiser.
[Roger deserves a huge vote of thanks for his very hard work in organizing the collection and raising such a wonderful sum. The Editor was on duty at Welcome Break and one contributor to his box was – wait for it – Gary Lineker! If you don’t know who he is, then you are obviously a lost soul, and if you do, then be impressed. I cannot divulge how much he put in! I should have asked for his autograph; it which would have made a good raffle prize]
5. Christmas Lunch, 17th December. This was a splendid occasion, attending by 54 members, family and friends. Our thanks are due to Jo Darvill for providing a wonderful lunch, with crackers, which included party hats, seen below and those things which go pop when you blow them! Thanks also to Roy Bolton and Nobby Clarke for organising a very profitable raffle, the proceeds of which to Branch funds.
Photo: Alan Cowie
6. Armed Forces Day, Saturday,26th June 2010. We intend to mark this in some way but not as we did last year. The Committee is considering this and would welcome ideas from members. Please let committee members know what you think.
7. Visit to Legion Headquarters. This will be arranged when we have a date approved at the next meeting. It can be combined with a visit to an appropriate museum or place of interest in London, e.g. the Imperial War Museum, the National Army Museum, or anywhere else which members can suggest.
8. Visit to the Bovington Tank Museum. Watlington Branch is organising a coach trip to Bovington on Tuesday, 16th March. The coach will leave Watlington at 7.3o0 am, and call at Wheatley to pick us up. The cost will be in the region of £20, depending on final numbers. Admission to the Museum is free to those wearing the Veterans Badge. The timetable is:
Depart Watlington 07.30 hrs.
Arrive Wheatley 07.50 hrs. approx (pick up point to be notified)
Arrive Bovington 10.30 hrs.
Depart Bovington 17.00 hrs.
Arrive Wheatley 19.30 hrs. approx.
If you would like to go on this very interesting trip, please contact Peter Jackson at the address shown below.
9. RBL lapel badges. I have three left out of a small batch ordered a few weeks ago, so please let me know if you would like one. They cost £4.10. If anyone is interested in any other items sold by Legion, e.g. ties, berets, blazer badges, then do let me know.
10. Forces Discounts. The following notice on the Forces Discount website says: ‘The discounts and benefits provided in the Defence Discount Directory and web site are aimed at the Defence Community in its widest sense. Regulars, Reserves, Veterans, Cadets, MOD Civil Servants and families together make up a group of over 10 million people.’ The term now being used to encompass all of us, including those currently serving, is ‘The Defence Family’.
11. Priority medical and hospital care. This doesn’t apply at the moment, but appeared in the press very recently as a government proposal. The country’s 5 million service veterans would be entitled to priority treatment. More information available if required, but when I read that it would not apply to National Servicemen, I, being one of those, then rather lost interest! It is only a proposal, though.
12. Welfare. Please let any of the committee know if you hear of a member who is in any difficulty and needs help. Any information will of course be dealt with in complete confidence.
13. Veterans Badges and Service Records. If you wish to have either or both of these, again please let me know. Each of the three services has a different form, but the procedure is much the same. You can also obtain the record of a family member who has died but a certificate of kinship must be completed. These are very interesting documents, providing information which many of us will have forgotten about!
14. Soldiers of Wheatley. The material assembled for Armed Forces Day last year, and dealing with those men of Wheatley who were killed in the First World War, has been tidied up and presented to the Wheatley Archives and to the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Trust at Caversfield, Bicester. The SOFO Trust houses a remarkable archive, containing, amongst much else, a database of 90,000 soldiers who served in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and the Queen’s Own Oxford shire Hussars It also has maps showing where 3831 German bombs were dropped in the county in the Second World War, and much else besides. The Trust will shortly be leaving its present premises and is looking to relocate somewhere else in the County, at least temporarily, before moving to purpose-built premises at the Oxfordshire Museum, in Woodstock.
The Wheatley Archive is a treasure house of material on the village, including considerable collections on its military history. It always welcomes both enquiries and donations of new items. The Archive Room is in the Merry Bells and is open each Thursday from 2 to 5 pm, though appointments can be made for other times.
We have also donated to both archives that wonderful collection of letters written by Reginald Stamp from the Western Front between 1915 and 1959 and kindly presented, first to the Branch, and now to the Archives, by Wally Boater, who found them in his late father’s house, ‘Rellew’, High Street, the house where Reginald and his wife Annie lived after their marriage in 1919. The originals of Reginald’s letters and typed transcripts have gone to the Wheatley Archive and photocopies of both to the Soldiers of Oxfordshire.
15. Congratulations to Dennis Walbancke who celebrates his 90th birthday this month, and, a bit late, to Dennis and Joan who had their 65th wedding anniversary last year. We wish you both many happy years to come and thank you for your loyal membership of the Royal British Legion and the Branch.
16. Coldstream Guardsmen Reprise Long March. This item is from the Ministry of Defence weekly newsletter, MoD Oracle:
A company of 100 Guardsmen from Number 7 Company, Coldstream Guards, completed a 425 mile march from their spiritual home of Coldstream in the Scottish Borders to the Tower of London this weekend [i.e. 6 January]. The march was an arduous training exercise designed to challenge the young soldiers before many of them deploy on Operation HERRICK in Afghanistan in the coming months. It passed through Berwick-on-Tweed, Newcastle, Durham, York, Doncaster, Loughborough, Market Harborough, Milton Keynes, Dunstable, St. Albans and Barnet, before reaching London. The Guardsmen arrived at the Tower of London on 30th January
Officers and Committee
Chairman: Lt. Col. Alan Cowie, 102 Gidley Way, Horspath, OX33 1TD. Tel. 01865 873214.
e-mail: alancowie@talk21.com
Vice-Chairman: Roy Bolton, 14 Keydale Road, Wheatley OX33 1NS
Tel.01865 432917 . e-mail. pudlo57@googlemail.com
Hon. Treasurer and Hon. Poppy Appeal Organiser: Roger Bell, Windmill House,
1 Windmill Lane, Wheatley, OX33 1SL Tel. 01865 875286.
E-mail: roger_bell@tiscali.co.uk
Hon. Secretary and Newsletter: Peter Jackson, 110 Church Road, Wheatley, OX33 1LU.
Tel. 01865 873246. E-mail: peterjackson25@hotmail.com
Nobby Clarke, 120 Church Road, Wheatley, OX33 1LU. Tel. 1865 873893
Colin Towner, 7 Old Road, Wheatley, OX33 1NU. Tel. 01865 872723.
E-mail: ruthvenscot7@hotmail.com
Jim Watson, 1 Roman Road, Wheatley, OX33 1UU. Tel. 01865 873689.
E-mail: jimwatson36@tiscali.co.uk
Standard Bearer: Gerald Baldwin, 9 Hillary Way, Wheatley, OX33 1UY
Tel. 01865 874647
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