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| The Colonel's Story ~:~ Episode 4 So what had I taken on?
The Regiment was like a small version of the King's Army. Just as the KA is comprised of a group of quite independent Regiments who come together for the purpose of fighting the rebels, so there were at least four quite separate and independent groups or societies (Norfolk Royalist Society, Bristol, Yeovil, and Coventry) each with their own constitution and elected officials, who came together at a major muster to form Sir Thomas Lunsfords Regiment of Foot. After Mike Warman’s disappearance I was now responsible for the coordination and control of all these groups once they arrived on the camp site as well as the complete organisation, military and social, of the Norfolk Royalist Society.
So I called a quick meeting of all Lunsfords present to determine the future. About half the Bristol Lunsfords decided to follow Mike to the opposition, whilst the rest of Bristol, Yeovil, Street and most of the outlying Somersets decided to stay on.
Fortunately the Coventry Lunsfords under son Dave had grown into a large unit, so we were still a formidable presence on the field.
To continue with events of 1975
Ewshot, near Aldershot
This was on half the site of an actual skirmish, the other half of the site being on the other side of a high security fence surrounding an army establishment of some kind which was out of site over the top of a hill. There was an old hedge which came down this hill at right angles to the fence, and half way through the Battle, which was very hectic, I suddenly became aware of a Cavalier besides this hedge on the other side of the fence. Now this chap was superbly dressed and looked authentic in every way, but who was he and how did he get over the 6ft. fence, barbed wire and so on?
He stood there watching the Battle for some time, and then disappeared as quickly as he had come. Now in the pub that night, it turned out that nearly everybody had seen this chap, but nobody knew him or had seen him come or go, although it would have taken several minutes to walk the length of the visible hedge. No rational explanation of this apparition was ever found, but it was an actual site. A good many sceptics believed in ghosts after that!
Scarborough.
In these early days one went wherever there was a muster going on and there was no great distinction between the various societies. There was one particular chap, a gunner and Colonel of Essex's Regiment in the Knot, who came to most things that Norfolk Lunsfords supported, and we became good friends. He would have liked to get Lunsfords into the Knot so he formally invited the Regiment to this muster at Scarborough. Details of the actual battle are lost, but I think we found it rather tame compared with our own events. There are two memories that I should like to record:-
The castle stands on the top of a hill and the outer bailey is a large field sloping down to a cliff which is an almost sheer drop of about a hundred feet down to the promenade and sea front. From the audience position by the Castle there is a bit of dead ground on the top of the cliff and we were sent over into this dead ground at the beginning of the battle so that we could suddenly appear as reinforcements to the attacking troops. A couple of our chaps had had a few, felt the call of nature and, without looking, vaulted over the low stone boundary wall, and disappeared from site. A few minutes later two very white faced and completely sober lads crawled back over the wall. They could easily have fallen all the way down to the promenade, but fortunately had landed on a little ledge about five feet down!
At the end of the battle we lined up to salute the crowd, a bit too close, and a wadge of smouldering straw from one of the SK cannon landed on the head of a Lunsford camp follower who was in the crowd, and turned her very rapidly into a short haired roundhead! After that we didn’t wait to join the parade and march-past of the Brig* on the way out! *(Brigadier Peter Young, the Brig, was at one time Commandant at Sandhurst, his passion was history of the Civil War, and he was writing a book on the battle of Edgehill. But somehow all his research left unanswered questions so one weekend he took a group of cadets to Edgehill and tried to reconstruct the battle authentically from his records. Now the cadets enjoyed the weekend so much that they decided to do it again, and that started the Sealed Knot and by and large the whole re-enactment industry. Well, that’s what I was told in the early days. How true it is I do not know, but it makes a nice story)
Third Norfolk Banquet
For some reason we could not have Swannington Hall again this year, possibly something to do with the cannon transport fiasco. But the owner of the pub at Wayford Bridge was also Farm Manager for some landed family, and looked after a big fruit farm in North Norfolk. This farm was somewhat remote and so had a camp for fruit pickers. There was a big old barn which had been converted into a dining room and bar, proper toilets and several old army huts complete with camp beds. We got the use of all this for free, and ran coaches out of Norwich for those who didn't want to camp out.
Joan records “a wonderful evening”. At this time she was working shifts as first aider at Cantley sugar beet factory, and apparently she left the Banquet and went to work at 12.45 am. By this time one of our girls, Anna, had got very drunk, and Joan decided to take her with her to the factory so that she could keep an eye on her. Anna knew nothing of being loaded into the car, of the journey, or of being put to bed in the first aid room. When she came to in the morning, surrounded by roaring machines, flashing lights and hissing, billowing, steam, she was convinced that she had died and gone to hell!
Norwich Training Weekend And Norfolk Royalist Society AGM.
I can only imagine that this was an excuse for a pre Christmas party. If anybody out there still has a copy of the minutes of that AGM I should love to see them! ~:~ And so we move on to 1976, when the muster list in the Officer's Handbook shows | Whitehall | | | Lydiard Tregose | Wilts | 29/30 May | Brill | Oxon | | Market Harborough | Leics | | Darlington | | 3&4 July | Blenheim | Oxon | 7/8 Aug. | Powderham Castle | | | Chaddesley Corbet | Warwickshire | 28/29/30 Aug. | Bramham Park | | 4/5 Sept. | Cranbury Park | Winchester | 18/19 Sept. | Esh Winning | Co.Durham | | Knebworth (Naseby Film) | |
The dates given above I have gleaned from Joan's Diary, and there are also entries for an RA do at Otley in Suffolk on 25th Jan. and a special Norfolk Lunsfords' do at Earlham Park on Spring Bank Holiday Monday, 31st May.
Whitehall
Could have been one of many.
More pictures here. Lydiard Tregose
 Is just off the M4 on the western outskirts of Swindon. It was a Roundhead organised Battle, and for some reason they did not want any guns, so I was at a loose end again. But this was not so much of a disaster as it might have been. The organiser had forgotten to warn the local pubs and we drank them all dry on the Friday night so that for the Saturday lunch time session we were forced several miles away. It was good weather, (unlike the KA, Roundhead battles nearly always struck lucky), and there was a huge audience. But there was only one single track entrance for both public and troops and the queues, which included half the troops, stretched back for miles. We did get in just before the end of the Battle, but only just.
Another lesson learnt (and sometimes forgotten) for future musters:-separate entrances for public and troops! The house at Lydiard Tregose, now a museum, was the home of the St. John family. In the grounds there is an ancient church with some fantastic tombs including the “Golden Cavalier” in memory of Edward St.John who was killed at the second battle of Newbury. Well worth a visit!
Brill
The second time at this venue, and another good battle. This was a Bank Holiday, and that meant a Battle lasting a minimum of two hour on each of the three days (we were still young. fit, and enthusiastic).
However, Norfolk City Council had arranged a big Fete at Earlham Park on Bank Holiday Monday and all local bodies and societies were invited to take part, for a small fee. We still owed them for the hire of the park for the Earlham Park Battle, and before the Brill muster was confirmed had agreed to do something to write off this debt. Now at that time we had an associated “company of archers” (a dozen or so enthusiastic longbow men who paid their subs and liked the costume and the social side of Lunsfords) and they agreed to put on a display providing I was there to organise it.
If this episode is late it is because my memory has deserted me and I have spent ages trying to find the reason for the next bit, with no success. Somehow we also got involved with providing Lady Godiva for this show! What Lady Godiva has to do with the Civil War is beyond me, but there it is, it happened.
So Joan and I left Brill after the Sunday battle, and turned up at Earlham Park the next day with a dozen archers, a white horse, a very long blonde wig, and some two sided toupee plasters. The archer's commentator failed to turn up, so I struggled to commentate on archery contests, (and it was a struggle as I knew nothing about the sport) whilst Joan donned the wig and paraded round the park for a couple of hours, side saddle on the white horse, and so the debt was cancelled!
Strangely, I can find no pictures or press cuttings of this event, although Joan was often recognised in the town thereafter.
In the meantime fun and games happened at Brill. It seems that a crowd of yobs from Oxford heard about these "poofters in funny clothes" and thought they would be easy meat so they turned up in the pub on Sunday night after we had left. I understand that the pub got trashed and they got thrashed. In all the years that I have been in this game that is the only occasion that I know of where trouble occurred in a pub. Usually potential trouble makers look at the size of some of our lads and back off quick!
I cannot remember Market Harborough or Darlington, and can find no reference to them in Joan's diary. Probably we didn’t go to these. One was a bit spoilt for choice years ago!
Blenheim
Over the years one battle merges into the next and it is difficult to remember the details, but this one is clear for obvious reasons as you will see.
The audience was near the house, and the Battle was to take place on the other side of the lake. The KA was hidden in woods behind the battlefield, and the RA had to advance from the house across the bridge, But the battle was organised by the cavalry, their show piece was the defence of the bridge, and they made a very prolonged job of this. I had the guns on a ridge behind the KA, and Joan, as usual, was down with the troops. After a time she came up the hill and told me that I had better get down there and sort things out as the delay was causing frustration and some of the officers had deserted. So I told my son Mike to look after the guns whilst I was away and down I went. It was chaos down there with no Lunsford pike officers in sight, but I hadn't been there more than a couple of minutes before the Roundhead Army got across the bridge and attacked. Well, the adrenalin flowed, my wartime officer training came into effect, and I took over field command.
I found that I thoroughly enjoyed it, that I wasn't a coward after all, and from then on I passed the artillery over to Mike and commanded the Regiment in the field until I was promoted to General of Artillery. ~:~ We started these reminiscences with the question "how did an old chap like me become Colonell of the best Regiment in the ECWS?", and now you have the answer, but perhaps you would like a few more tales of the early days. ~:~ | |
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