The official Muster list for 1979

And of these I was only able to attend the Doddington House Muster over the Bank Holiday, 25/26/27 August. In spite of having numerous photos, I remember nothing about this particular Muster, but Joan records pouring rain on the Saturday, camp site drying out on Sunday and a lovely sunny day on Monday, with “Good” battles on both these days.

As I can’t tell you much about the battle, here are a few pictures to fill the space.

For pictures of the battle, click here

For 1980 the list is

 Now it was on April 13^th 1980 that our youngest son Stephen, Sergeant of Pike for Lunsfords, was drowned in an accident on the Norfolk Broads. We came home for the inquest, and there was a memorial service in St Clements Church, Norwich, which was packed with friends and members of the ECWS who travelled from far and wide to be there.

We were home for one month later on this year, from 23 July to 22 August

Powderham was 26^th and 27^th July, and Joan reports lovely weather, good battles, not many injuries, and met many old friends! Of the Battle itself I remember little, but I do remember the terrific moral support that we received from the whole society following our loss. I do not know of any other Society as close knit and caring as ours! I have found just two pictures from this year and here they are. Somebody must have sent me the Whitehall one, just to show that things were in good heart!

For 1981 the list is

Now the strange thing here is that there is no mention of any of these in the diary, but we went to a major battle at Ugbrooke in Devon on 25 & 26 July, and I remember it well, and have a couple of pictures, although these are rather hazy. But on the picture of the house and battlefield you can see that there was a sizeable audience  

It was not too far from Powderham and so Joan and I stayed at the Devon Arms again where we had good friends.

I was back permanently in early 1982, and was able to attend most of the musters. However, things had changed somewhat whilst I had been away.

 My son David had originally formed and organised Coventry Lunsfords, which was entirely a student organisation, for Lanchester Polytechnic. David returned to Norwich to look after our house and dogs whilst we were away, and when most of the students came to the end of their courses and were dispersed far and wide over the country there was nobody left to keep the thing going, so Coventry Lunsfords disappeared as an entity.

Whilst Dave had been excellent at organising a Company, he hadn’t apparently managed too well with communications for the whole Regiment and things were in the doldrums until my Son in Law, Brian Bunce, had started to take an active part in Regimental organisation. (Brian, as you know, ultimately became Commanding Officer.)

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 However, two other things happened to help dispel the gloom. I am not certain of the exact dates for either of them, but of one thing I am certain—they both happened prior to Caldicote in 1983.

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 A young chap approached Brian and myself at a battle and said "You won’t remember me, but I am Adrian Hallworth. I joined Lunsfords at Ewshot, had a couple of battles with you, and then you gave us away to Grenvilles. Unfortunately that didn’t last, and we’ve been shunted about from Regiment to Regiment, the last being Slannings, which has folded.

So can we please come back? I can bring three or four musketeers and a gun. Well, we hadn’t got any musketeers in the Regiment at that time, so we welcomed him with open arms. (Adrian also ran the Salisbury Royalist Society, and ultimately followed Brian as CO)

 I think that I told you early on about the Yeovil Lunsfords and the Schooling family. The son, Dave Schooling, wanted to rejoin the KA and form a Regiment. To do this he needed to be attached initially to an established organisation, so he joined us and brought to us a body of men who became known as Henry Lunsfords Company. This helped to fill the gap left by the demise of Coventry.

 The overall organisation had also changed. Prior to 1981, the English Civil War Society existed in name only. Although the Kings Army and the Roundhead Association both claimed on their letterhead that they were “Part of the ECWS” the two societies went their own separate ways, organised their own Battles, insurances etc, and kept any profit arising. This was a bit unfortunate for the KA, because we always seemed to hit bad weather. (The original King’s Army in the West was rightly nicknamed the “King’s Army in the Wet”). The RA, on the other hand, always seemed to get good weather, but maybe this changed whilst I was away because in 1981 the two sides got together and started “The English Civil War Society Ltd”, a non profit making organisation to actually organise the battles and cover all insurances and legal obligations involved. Up till then we usually had a partnership with the sponsor and shared any profit or loss—now we had a contract, got paid for our services and the sponsor took all the risk.

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 In 1982 or 3, I am not sure which, I was elected a Director of ECWS Ltd

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 Another change had happened or was imminent. At the first battle of the season Brian asked my opinion of females in the pikepress, and I made it quite clear that I didn’t think this was a good idea. This was not male chauvinism, I had always encouraged the ladies to take an active part, but the thought of 2” ash pikes pressing against tender extruberances didn’t seem right to me! But unbeknownst to me it was in fact a fait accompli!

Now, back to the Battles!

Those listed for 1982 are:-

And from the diary

 In the early days Whitehall was a moveable feast! The date was always the same—the last Sunday in January—but the location varied.

I remember one where we formed up in Embankment Gardens in a snowstorm and marched up to King Charles’s statue on Trafalgar Square, and another time when the form up was somewhere along Millbank and we marched all round Parliament Square and up Whitehall to the Statue. We were very much at the mercy of the police, who dictated where we could march.

I think it was this year that James Rae, a London member and a solicitor, persuaded the powers that be to let us follow the exact route of King Charles’s last journey from St James Palace to the Banqueting House.

James moved to Liverpool, and I moved to London, and I was asked to take over the organisation of the March and try and repeat this route. Fortunately I was successful, maybe the grey hair and maturity helped, and this event has now become a fixed item on the our calendar and the London Tourist Trail.

Weston Park

 I had come back from Kuwait with an upmarket Rollei camera and I took a whole lot of black and white pictures, both action and posed, for publicity for the ECWS, and kept none for myself! One of the highlights was a posed picture of slaughter over a gun emplacement, but I have not got a copy of this. But I have found two coloured pictures of the gun emplacement taken a few seconds apart and showing some rather special “special” effects and a somewhat surprised star. There is also just one coloured picture of, presumably RA guns, with possibly Lunsfords in blue in the background

Of the battle itself I remember little, except that the sponsor neglected publicity, the crowd was minimal, as you will see from the pictures, and the event was a financial disaster, so there were all sorts of niggles afterwards about alleged damage etc. But Joan records “Good” battles for both days—and we used two pubs in Shifnal, the Railway on Saturday and the White Hart on Sunday. To get to Shifnal from the campsite on back lanes we had to cross the construction site of the M6, which was a bit hairy!

Norfolk Park, Sheffield

 Joan’s diary refers to this as  “Andy Moor’s Battle”. Andy Moor was an ex Coventry Lunsford and a staunch supporter of the Society. When Brian Bunce resigned as CO Andy was next in line, but had to refuse because pressure of work meant he could not spare the necessary time.

Andy came from Sheffield, and presumably organised this Midi Muster (equivalent to a large RIE event today) It was held in a natural amphitheatre and was an excellent spectacle with lots of little sideshows. On the top of the hill surrounding this park was a large council estate, and there was an unfortunate incident when some yobo up there decided to pepper the show with air gun pellets. One or two people got stung, but as far as I remember there was no serious injury. On the other hand there was a large Estate pub where the people were most friendly.

To get to the camp site from the main road you had to pass through this estate, which was quite a maze, so much so that Beryl got lost and took an hour to cover a couple of hundred yards!

Wimpole Hall, Cambridge

 This was a Lunsford muster organised by Brian Bunce. To the best of my knowledge it was the first Major at a National Trust property, and we were hoping that great things would come of it. A great deal of effort was put into building a fort which was to be occupied by the RA and stormed and taken by the KA.

Now I don’t know whether a change of VAT rate occurred, but whatever the cause, the NT finished up with an odd rate for their admission fee. Instead of nice round pounds it was pounds and coppers, and the people on the gate very quickly ran out of small change. The event had been well advertised and there was a lot of interest, and Joan records on Saturday “Fine day but cold, reasonable crowd, I took guard duty during battle”

But on Sunday large numbers turned up, the gatekeepers couldn’t cope, queues miles long quickly formed, and in fact people were still trying to get in by the time the battle was over. This was not entirely the fault of NT because Joan records

“Very good battle but finished a little early”

And why did it finish early? Well, it was a Lunsford Major, all the old Lunsfords came out of the woodwork to support it, and we finished up with a pike block 49 strong, (or so Brian tells me), and brooked no opposition!

It was a great shame, because the NT lost money on the event, and lost interest in further sponsorship.

 There was a good pub, the Hardwick Arms, just outside the gates to the park. Now in the old days Norfolk Lunsfords used to travel to battles in a coach. After a time this became too expensive, and we had a transit van to carry the equipment etc, and the transit got used to ferry people too and from the pub. Now it is quite feat to get a coach load of people into a transit, but we managed, and the police in those days were very tolerant and would often escort us back to the campsite, just to make sure we didn’t get into trouble. How times have changed!

Anyway, the point of this story is that we didn’t need the van this time but as we didn’t want to lose the art of packing them in we had a competition to see how many we could pack into the stall in the gent’s loo!

You’d be surprised!!

Braintree

 This was an August Bank Holiday muster, and Bank Holiday musters meant three battles. We knew that the Saturday battle would not draw big crowds, but as there was no regular morning drill it gave us the opportunity to get some practice in and at the same time have a dress rehearsal for the main battles. Now, even today, the second day’s battle tends to be far superior to the first, so you can imagine that the third day was always superb. And so it was here at Braintree. Again, I have no pictures, but I do recall that the finale called for an attack over a shallow river, and that was one of the hardest fought battles ever!

Joan records a lovely sunny day for Sunday, but it poured with rain as we marched off on Monday—typical Bank Holiday weather.

Lunsfords found a lovely back street pub called The Rose and Crown, with a Boules Court in the garden and a very friendly landlord who kept flexible hours and treated us nobly on the last night!

Salisbury Banquet

 Salisbury Lunsfords under Adi must have grown quite considerably, because this was a well-attended event in the Church Hall at Coombe Bisset. On a sad note, Joan records that Sue Green had been diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy. I heard from her father this Christmas that she has worsened considerably, is unable to write and needs full time care.

Sue became Sue Morgan Hearder and if anybody remembers her and would like to get in touch the address is

 12 Chichester Close, East Wellow, Romsey, SO51 6EY

Norfolk Banquet

 Whilst I was away our venue at Park Hall Farm had become unusable. The owners had turned the place into a hotel, and the barn was being used as the main dining room. Various other venues were tried, non very successful until Brian found the scout hut. Now mediaeval Norwich had the longest city walls outside London, and boasted 52 churches and 365 pubs. Some of the pubs had disappeared, but the fabric of all churches that Hitler missed had been saved. There were no longer congregations to go round, and the redundant churches were used for all sorts of purposes, antique fairs, marshal arts, puppet theatres, and St Simon and St Jude’s was the scout headquarters. We had the use of it for 48 hours, it was an excellent location, and we used it until dwindling numbers led to the abandonment of the function sometime after 1994.

I think that this was probably the first year in this hall, but the Banquet was usually mid to end of November and Joan and I moved into our new flat in London on 14 November, so I think we must have missed it. But I see that we hosted the Kings Army Council on 20 November, and the Council of War on 21^st. November.

That’s keen for you!

1983  official musters were

And from the diary I find reference to

Whitehall

 All I can tell you about this is that it apparently rained all day except for the actual period of the march. Most unusual!

The day before was the AGM of ECWS Ltd held at a pub called the Spotted Dog at Willesden when the only beer available was 4-pint cans of some unspeakable keg. The venue was not organised by Lunsfords.

However, we had started to organise a London party for the night before the parade. We found that there were clearing houses in the hotel business who could obtain greatly discounted prices for parties over 20 strong on a Saturday night, and this year we were at the St James Hotel in Buckingham Gate. The St James had been built during Victoria’s reign as an overflow for official guests from Buckingham Palace, and was luxurious but shabby. We would have got B&B plus evening meal for under £20pp. Since then it has been renovated into a five star establishment, and prices are from £129 per room.

Makes you think!

Witton

 Another 3 day Bank Holiday Muster.

Witton Castle is a mock Victorian Castle that had been turned into a Country Club. This was the second Witton and was one of the wettest and coldest battles ever. Joan and I were fortunate enough to get B&B with the caretaker in the old servants quarters, but for those camping it was horrendous. There was a small living history encampment up on the battlefield, but this had to be abandoned, and some of the lads from there were sent to hospital with hypothermia.

I took another series of black and white photos for publicity purposes, but these were never used as they were hazy because of the rain and the fact the air was so heavy that cannon and musket smoke did not disperse. I have included a couple of these pictures just to give an impression of the conditions.

About 8 Lunsfords stuck it out, and I had a special medal struck for these stalwarts!

There were a couple of bars in the castle itself, but these were crowded and cold, so on Monday night a very wet and bedraggled crowd of Lunsfords departed to a local pub where we were made very welcome as we dried out.

More Pictures here.

Ham House

 This was a large RIE with a tiny campsite near a good pub called, I think, “The Lass of Richmond Hill”. There was a mile and a half march along the towpath of the River Thames and the whole army discharged through a small gate into the grounds of the house, so that progress along the path was painfully slow---it took about an hour to cover the distance. And the one memorable incident of the whole weekend occurred on this towpath   when one of our ladies decided that she had to have a pee, come what may! Now there were a few yards of verge between the path and the riverbank, and this was covered in hay and reeds etc about 3 feet tall. So it was skirts up, knickers down and squat, all perfectly decent, until she met the bunch of stinging nettles at the bottom, when all was revealed!

Caldicot

 You will see that officially we were desperately short of major musters this year. Somebody last year came up with the idea for an RIE at Caldicot Castle, and I was asked to have a look at it and see if it could be expanded to a major. Why me? Well, I had just inherited a cottage in West Wales and was making numerous journeys up and down the M4 to see it, so it was no great shakes to stop off at Caldicot, and we managed to upgrade and produce a first class battle. Now, for this story you need to know something about the original Lunsfords, and you will see from the potted history that they were an unruly lot when not actually engaged in Battle, but in action were the tops.

And the modern day Lunsfords were basically no different, superb on the battlefield or at organising and running musters, but they wanted nothing whatsoever to do with such things as drill in the mornings- a pernicious habit that some Regiments were just starting. Neither would they hang about for half an hour at the form up point waiting for the battle to start. They could be relied upon to turn up just at the last moment!

 But all that was about to change.

 Dave Cameron, our Regimental Historian, had done some research and come up with the genuine pattern for the Lunsford Standard. New standards had been made, and I was to present these to the various Companies before lunch on the Sunday.

 Now Henry Lunsfords were a different breed, and were quite happy to be up and about in the morning, but for Norfolk and Salisbury it was a terrific shock. But they did manage it, in fact found that life did begin before the pubs opened, and thereafter it was not so difficult to get them moving in the morning!

The ceremony was quite impressive, and the morale of the troops could not have been higher.

Now, in this battle the script called for a parley half way through, when the KA were asked to, but refused to, surrender. After the parley we were supposed to charge the enemy once, and then be beaten back and retreat.

So, we got the order to charge, and charge we did. Now my wartime training as an Army Officer told me that you always obeyed the last order, and like Nelson, I turned my deaf ear towards the Lord General and never heard the order to retreat, so Lunsfords, with adrenalin flowing and morale high, kept on charging and charging. It got tougher and tougher, and I remember saying to Fran and Beryl and one or two firstaiders and camp followers “you fend of the horse” and to Adi “you look after the muskets” because it was taking all my time to look after the pike, who were being attacked from all sides. I vaguely heard the commentator telling the public that she didn’t recognise the standards of this Regiment putting up such a terrific fight, and then the Lord General of the RA tapped me on the shoulder and said “David, you had better look around you”. And when I did, I found that Lunsfords were in the middle of the field completely surrounded by the whole Roundhead Army, with not another Cavalier in sight, all the other Regiments had retreated into some dead ground on the far side of the field. In the end I agreed to withdraw on the condition that we were allowed to march away with colours flying and drums beating, and this we did, and Roundhead Army gave us a salute as well as we went!

 And I think that that was the last time that I actually took command of Lunsfords on the field

Nostel Priory

 Another RIE, and for some reason I finished up commanding the Kings Army. There was some sort of Fete going on and we were only a part of it. The KA was supposed to be encamped on some high ground  (fortunately near the public beer tent), and we put on a whole series of cameos of soldiers at rest and play—cooking, singing, wrestling and so on. When attacked by the RA it became a nice little skirmish, except that the RA did not keep to the agreed script. What I remember particularly was being interviewed by a roving Roundhead reporter, and then finding that it had been broadcast live to the crowd. I might have been a little more circumspect with my remarks about the RA CO had I known. The F and B words were not in common parlance on the air in 1983!

On the social side, there was only one pub in the village, not another for miles, the landlord did not normally open till 7.30pm, and no amount of pleading would make him change his mind. Years later when we did a major there his attitude was still the same, but at least he put a locum in who stayed open all day and made an absolute bomb.

Barnet Battle

 This was a small event quite local to my new home but unfortunately I could not make it, as I had to go to Wales to rescue my two year old cat, Tom, who had gone missing down there the week before when I had to leave on time for an urgent business appointment. We spent two days in a vain search for him, gave up on the Sunday night and went for a pint, and came back to find him sleeping large as life on our bed! He stayed with us for another 16 years after that, and many of you will have known him.

As for the battle, I gather that it was pretty well rained off.

RA March

 The RA was dead jealous of the success of our Whitehall March and was always looking for some excuse to emulate it. What the excuse for this march was I do not remember, but it so happened that we had an Army Council Meeting at home that weekend, and we finished early so that we could all go and (j) cheer. Actually they did not make a bad showing and did a nice drill display on Horse Guards Parade.

But the reason I thought this worthy of mention is that at our Army Council the discussion turned on the Artillery and how it could be improved. Remember that I had run a Trayne of Artillery from Norwich in the early days, but it had proved impossible to service the whole army’s need for guns from one depot. So the guns had been split up and were owned or kept by various Regiments up and down the country so that they came on the field at a Major as an adjunct to their own Regiment, and usually the Regimental COs were far too busy looking after the Pike and Musket to bother about the guns. But guns were quite an expensive item to transport and to provide with Powder and it was felt that we were not getting value for money as far as spectacle was concerned.

So it was suggested that at Major Musters Regiments would second their guns to a Trayne of Artillery, and I was asked to take charge of this as Lt General of Artillery.

But I said that, whilst I was prepared to have a go, in my opinion I already had the best job in the whole Kings Army—nay of the whole of the ECWS--and I was not prepared to give up as Colonel of Lunsfords under any circumstances.

And so I was allowed to keep this post whilst taking on the part time job with the Artillery. I was naïve enough to think that I could do both jobs, but at the first Battle next season the guns needed organising and welding together as a Trayne whilst Lunsfords was a well oiled machine with good and experienced officers. So I found myself spending all my time with the guns, and after a few majors, when they were an efficient organisation, it would not have been fair for me to go back and take over command again from Brian, so we came to an agreement that I would carry on with the guns but act as “Colonel in Chief” as far as Lunsfords was concerned.

And there you have the answer to the question posed in the first sentence of this story!

Norfolk Banquet

 This one was definitely in St Simon and St Judes Church, and I think this is the ticket. I have them dated and going back to 1984, and this undated one appears in the archives just before this. The memorable incident at this particular banquet was when Brian introduced me to a beautiful and voluptuous Cavalieress in a superb costume as “this is your female pikeman” Apparently the young lady in question was an ex Slanning, and had been hiding her prowess from me for the whole season. So, in spite of my worries, the pike presses didn’t do her any harm, and she became 2i/c of the Regiment!

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I told you that I was elected as a Director of ECWS Ltd.

The Memorandum of Association states that there shall be 8 directors, 4 appointed by KA and 4 by RA, and the board shall nominate one of its members as Chairman, this appointment to be ratified at the AGM.

The original directors had come to a gentleman’s agreement that the chair should alternate annually between the societies and that directors should take it in turn according to seniority. Now, because the KA provided the Secretary and because of resignations, my turn as Chairman came round fairly quickly, but at the end of my session when I should have handed over to an RA member, the RA directors did not put up a candidate but nominated me again. And so I stayed on as chairman for many years until my increasing deafness made it impossible for me to continue and they reluctantly let me retire.

I carried on as General of Artillery for the next 14 years, until increasing deafness made me give up in 1997, when I was made Governor of the Tower of London.

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I carried on as Chairman of Lunsford Society for another couple of years after this, but in the end my deafness won and I retired from active participation.

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From here on I cannot give you details of the Regiments involvement in Major battles, but if anybody is interested I could rake up a few anecdotes on the social side.

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