Page 90 - The Wish Stream Year of 2021 (Crest)

‘He never told me about a problem without also telling me that it was either already sorted or that he had the solution in hand’, Peter said. But per- haps Dick’s greatest talent was his understated approach; humility was his gift. Always firm but fair, former Guardsman, Adam Rewcroft, spoke of the great effort Dick took to rescue him from an interminable vortex of trouble, mishap and misdemeanour, and the dream posting to Kenya which followed as a result. Arriving in Germany that summer of 1993, former Coldstreamer Dar- ren Smith recalls Dick addressing the Sergeants’ Mess; ‘Your loyalty, I demand ... Your respect, I will earn’.
A year later, in 1994, it was little surprise that Dick should be appointed to take over as ‘top dog’, the Academy Sergeant Major at Sand- hurst. General Sir Jack Deverell, Commandant at the time, remembers him as a soldier who was as at home in the field as on the drill square with a shared enthusiasm for mischief. During a final exercise in Germany, he and
life-long love of cooking although, much to his chagrin, he never quite managed to master the perfect roast potato.
In 1971, Dick enlisted into the Coldstream Guards and, after training, joined the 1st Battal- ion in Berlin. Paul Horniblow, who has sadly died since, flew out in a later draft from the Guards Depot, and reminisced that joining a Battalion as a fresh-faced Guardsman was a galling experi- ence fifty years ago. ‘Dick took me under his wing from the moment I arrived”, he told me; “he was a very good friend, one of the best’. By Paul’s own admission, they did not fit the norm as Guardsmen, eschewing the more traditional drinking haunts favoured by their comrades for music venues like Chelsea’s Drug Store and the pioneering Troubadour, developing an enduring passion for the bands of the time and attend- ing gigs by the likes of Deep Purple, The Sen- sational Alex Harvey Band, and Manfred Mann’s Earth Band.
Dick went to visit to that dream of
retail utopia, the ‘PX’ on a nearby
US Air Force base. Greeted by
a sea of denim, there was much
wailing, gnashing and grinding
of Sergeant Majorly teeth at the
vision of ‘devil’s cloth’. As the pair
came across yet another aisle of
interminable blue, so Dick turned
to General Jack and said ‘it’s no
good sir, we must do something
about this’. He made as if to set
light to a pair of the cursed trou-
sers, only for two large security men to appear at either end of the aisle and, in a little known incident not recorded elsewhere, the hapless duo in the shape of a senior general and the British Army’s number one Warrant Officer were escorted off the premises like naughty school children, laughing like teenagers and breathing a sigh of relief that ‘Commandant and Academy Sergeant Major arrested for attempted arson’ never made the headlines.
Richard Hedley McCormack was born on the Isle of Man on 10th February 1954. One of nine children, with his father serving in the Royal Air Force, travel and adventure were a feature of family life from the outset, growing up in places as far afield as Aden, Germany, and Aldershot. Dick spent his teenage years in Weston-Super- Mare, where he helped run donkey rides on the beach. He trained as a chef and so began a
It was not long before promotion beckoned as Dick’s talent, ability and leadership qualities were recog- nised. After a posting to the Guards Depot as a platoon sergeant in the Junior Guardsmen’s Company, he returned to the 1st Battalion for a tour of South Armagh in the winter of 1982. Clive Forestier-Walker, com- manding 2 (Patrols) Company at the time, wrote of Dick’s outstanding level of professionalism on demand- ing close observation tasks that were
nuanced and highly sensitive in nature. Dick was Mentioned in Despatches, gaining experience during the tour that stood him in good stead when appointed as Operations Warrant Officer in Bessbrook Mill for the 2nd Battalion’s subse- quent tour in 1991. His quick-thinking, upbeat and calm manner were a great asset during a tense tour complicated by Operation BRONSKI, a brigade-level operation to refurbish the Golf towers along the border.
Leaving Sandhurst, Dick accepted a commis- sion and was deservedly awarded the MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List of 1998. Four years later, as Quartermaster, when the 1st Bat- talion was stationed in Londonderry, the NAAFI bar was failing as all ranks were becoming increasingly frustrated at the lack of opportunity to let their hair down in a safe environment, it still being unsafe to do so outside. Greville Bibby,
Former Coldstreamer Darren Smith recalls Dick addressing the Sergeants’ Mess; ‘Your loyalty, I demand ... Your respect, I will earn’.
88 HISTORICAL