Page 357 - They Also Served

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Steve Davies 1978.
Stephen Davies was born in Darwen, Lancashire, on 22nd April 1959. Educated at Bishop Rawstorne Secondary Modern School, at 16, he became a junior soldier in the Royal Signals. Training at the Army Apprentices College, Harrogate, he passed out initially as the best recruit and then, on graduation, as the apprentice regimental sergeant major. Selected for officer training as a soldier entry on SMC 18, Davies was commissioned on 9th December 1978, later joining the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment. Aside from the usual junior regimental appointments, he was assistant military assistant to the quartermaster general and a staff officer with NATO Headquarters in Bosnia, for which he was awarded the MBE.
Davies commanded the 1st Battalion of his regiment on two tours of Northern Ireland and, after the latter, in South Armagh, was awarded a Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service. Promoted to colonel in 2004, he worked with the International Military Advisory and Training Team (IMATT) in Sierra Leone. A lifelong railway enthusiast, he was instrumental in setting up a museum to preserve the country’s railway heritage. After an appointment as chief of staff HQ, 2nd Division, Davies retired in 2008.
His first job as a civilian was as director of the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, organising a multi-million-pound refurbishment of one of the 19th-century buildings. In 2010, he secured his dream job as director of the National Railway Museum in York. Here, he welded the disparate workforce into a close-knit team by running the staff as if in a battalion, with the person in charge of the stores christened ‘The Quartermaster’ and head of HR ‘The Adjutant’. In late 2012, after
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