On the assumption that you would be getting bored with me waffling on about the old days, I had intended to make this episode short and sweet. But on looking for the odd photograph etc. to make it more interesting, I found two long forgotten files, and now I am hooked on this trip down memory lane, so I would like to share a few more stories with you.   Most enlightening, there is a little magazine, which was produced by Mike Warman and entitled The Kings Army Southern Tercio Issue number 1 : 21st October 1974.  It is interesting to see the size of Lunsfords, with 4 companies, compared to the rest, particularly as Winchesters had been a company of Lunsfords until Berkley. Note that I am now down with George Potter as commanding the Norfolk Company and also with Dick Bant (I don’t remember him, perhaps he never came back from sick leave) as commanding the Trayne of Artillery. 

   Also found is a picture of the wedding of Pete and Lois referred to in the Bristol Lunsfords contribution. It is interesting to see some of the old faces again, even if one cannot remember their names.

~:~

   So here we are, coming to the end of 1974, and I am now on the Council of War for the Kings Army, am in administrative charge of the Norfolk Company of Lunsfords, and have a battery of guns to keep me occupied on the field. I loved the social side of Lunsfords and of the Kings Army generally, but, being an arrant coward, had no desire to become involved in the cut and thrust of the Pike Regiment. Nasty minded pikemen tend to have respect for big guns that go bang!
   For 1975 the muster list given in the King’s Army Officers handbook reads as follows;

   Of these, I only remember going to Whitehall, Brill, Doddington and Ewshot.  The Welsh campaign involved living rough on the Welsh mountains and was not for me. Dundee and Barthomley I have no recollection of, and possibly we did not get the information. Sedgemore and Newport Pagnell we did know about, but maybe we were busy with other things. Also, if you look at the Southern Tercio magazine you will see a somewhat different muster list, namely;

   And again, I have no memory of Beeston or Romsey. So just to make sure of what actually happened I have found my wife’s diaries, and I think it might be interesting to actually record a year in the life of an early Lunsford. This is what we actually did in 1974/75;

   Added to this there was a Lunsford meeting in a pub called the Gibraltar Gardens (the Adam and Eve mentioned in the Tercio magazine had become too small for the numbers involved) every week, and rarely a week goes by without some reference to itinerant roundheads and/or cavaliers coming to stay. Taking the events one by one;

Winchester Banquet
   According to the diary at least Joan and I went, but I have no memory of it.

Norfolk Banquet
   Norfolk Lunsfords ran a second Banquet at Swannington Hall in November. The arrangement for the first banquet, where the ticket price included unlimited free booze, had been a disaster, and we decided to get a license and have a paying bar. Roger Cawdron, landlord of the Adam and Eve pub in Norwich where we held our meetings, applied for the license, but at the last moment was unable to go to the hearing, and I had to go to a Magistrates Court at Reepham in deepest Norfolk, on the morning of the banquet, to apply for this license. It was an interesting meeting for somebody who had had no previous experience of such a thing. I explained who we were, what we did and so on and the police representative objected on principle to any license at all, but the magistrates, all elderly ‘county’ types, said “but these people are Royalists, of course you can have a license, what time do you want it till?”. Being a novice I asked for 1.00am Sunday. The police quickly pointed out that no licenses were granted after 11.30pm on Saturday, which was the universal custom in those days, but they could quote no law or Act of Parliament which actually prohibited it and once again “these people are Royalists, license granted”, and so we got one of the first, if not the first, extension into Sunday morning.
   And a footnote to this story, it was a good job that we had the license because during the evening a chimney fire occurred in another part of the Hall, nothing to do with us, but the place was full of firemen and policemen so that we had to close dead on time. But at that stage, I lived in a big, 7 bed roomed, 3 reception roomed, Victorian house in Norwich and had set up a bar in the dining room so the party adjourned to there. Local Norwich people, including us, had offered floor space to all our visitors, but when the time came neither visitors nor locals wanted to leave and we finished up with 85 people sleeping in the house.  This was an all time record, but you must remember that I had four children in late teens or early twenties, and 12 Stanley Avenue was very much an open house, and Lunsfords had become like an extended family to us. And whereas many of the youngsters could not ‘talk’ to their own parents, they were quite happy to discuss their problems with ‘the boss’.

Whitehall
   It was some years before the Whitehall parade settled down into its present form, and each year the route was different. I have no idea which this was, but one that sticks in the mind was when we formed up in Victoria Embankment Gardens in a snow storm.

Naseby
   This was a protest march through Market Harborough, and one day event organised by the Sealed Knot on the actual battlefield to draw attention to proposals to take a motorway across the Battlefield. It was well supported by the King's Army and various Roundhead units (I don't think the Roundhead Association had been formed yet) as well as the Knot, and if my memory serve me correct a slight deviation of the route was ultimately obtained, but the A14 still cuts across the Battlefield. (A prominent objector to the scheme at the time was our own Eve, but when she married Shaughan Ferguson, had children of her own, and went to live in Lubenham, near Market Harborough, she found that the traffic problem was so bad that she changed sides completely and became a fervent supporter of the scheme)
   Lunsfords had agreed to meet up at a pub on the way home, but a dense fog came down and most of them missed it!

Wayford Bridge
   Is a village near Norwich, and the pub was a free house and one of the first to break away from the keg beer stranglehold and serve real ale. As such it became very popular, especially with Lunsfords, who, in turn became popular with the landlord for their capacity for beer and their good behaviour.There was a field at the back of the pub, and we were allowed to use this for training weekends. I remember that Brian McNierny, who was then a Pennyman in Liverpool, brought some troops down, and a good weekend was had by all. In the pub on Saturday night the Abbot and Adnams was flowing nicely, when Brian, unused to such niceties, asked plaintively 'can I have a Double Diamond please'. Of course, he later moved to Norfolk, joined Lunsfords, and now is a leading exponent of real ale!

Putney
   This was a one day (Saturday) event held on a degree day in the grounds of a college where one of our Lunsfords had graduated. (it seems a little early to have been a normal degree day - maybe it was a specialist college of some kind. If you should ever read this, Nigel, we would love to hear from you)
   Two things stick in my memory about this weekend, and neither of them to do with the actual battle. On the Sunday Morning half a dozen of us went for breakfast to a little caf' run by a Greek (I think). A couple of yobs, high on drugs, tried to get out without paying and started throwing tomato sauce bottles at the mirrors. They were quickly ejected by the Lunsfords and a couple of bus drivers who happened to be near them, and the Greek followed them out to try and get some recompense for the damage. Tempers ran high, and unfortunately he belted one of them just as the police arrived, so of course he got done for GBH whilst the yobs walked away free.
   After a lunch and sing song in a pub somewhere near the river, Norfolk Lunsfords decided to go into London and see the sights, and a convoy of several cars and a van set off. Everybody had changed into civvies except one Laurie Pay who was leading the convoy.
   When we got to Lavender Hill and Battersea Town Hall, it appeared that it was Borough Anniversary celebration of some sort, and we saw the Mayor in full regalia, tricorn hat and all, on the steps making an announcement. Laurie, in full costume, got out and asked him what he was doing in those funny clothes, and of course, the mayor reciprocated the question. So we explained who we were, and as they had an all day license in the Town Hall and were invited in  to help them drink the beer, so in return we rapidly got changed back into costume and gave several demonstrations of sword play, musket drill, cannon fire and even a bit of point of pike in the street outside, as well as.  A jolly good day was had by all and I see that Joan notes 'arrived home at 12.30'

Reepham
   Is a small town, (well, village nowadays) in Norfolk. By an ancient Charter it can hold a Hiring Fair, known as “The Strawberry Fair”, on June 28th, and for this day the town square can be closed to traffic. Nobody had bothered about this for years, but in 1975 June 28th fell on a Saturday and the local British Legion decided to resurrect the fair as a fund raising event. I was works director of a precast concrete company not far away, and one of my carpenters, who knew of my hobby and who was on the committee of the Legion, suggested to them that a battle might make a centre piece of their celebrations. And so it came to pass, and for the noble sum of £50 we agreed to put on a display. And what a display it was.
   There were three pubs on the square, one being an old coaching in with an archway to a yard at the back, from which you could get onto a back lane. Casualties were dragged through this arch by the camp followers, after which they could go left or right to rejoin their own side. This was one of the few battles where nobody minded playing dead for a few minutes!
   The script was that a troop of Roundheads descended on the town raping and looting as was their wont. The local population objected, whereupon the cropheads retaliated with a hanging from the arch and the burning of a witch in the middle of the square. Then a body of gallant cavaliers drove the enemy out and there was attack and counter attack for the rest of the afternoon. (battles went on for at least two hours in those days)
   We even had musketeers on top of the Church Tower overlooking the square, complete with life size dummies to throw off after an exchange of shot. There was a wonderful party that night, with all the locals joining in with us, and a great time was had by all. Next morning there was a very bruised Tim Kelly, and his story was that towards the end of the celebrations he decided he would like to look at the sea, so he drove up to the coast somewhere near Cromer, and managed to fall down the sandy cliff!
   The committee and the local populace wanted a repeat on the Sunday, but of course could not close the square, so they paid us a bit extra to cover the cost of explosives and we put on a skirmish on the farm behind our camp site.