Page 122 - The Royal Lancers Chapka 2019

120
2019 has been a busy year beginning with a get together on the 19th June culminating with a very long lunch in the Ship Inn at Wool in Dorset. 30 plus old friends from yesteryear including three Regimental widows and Rocky Lomas and his wife. Rocky was the A Squadron Gun Fitter for six years during Sennelager days in the 1960s.
Summer drinks organised by Gus Searcy was next on the agenda on Friday 25th July in the Slug and Lettuce in Nottingham City Centre and the night was enjoyed by 40 not so old comrades. The next day it was the Picnic in the Park at Thoresby Hall. Al- though it was bucketing down it was well attended and enjoyed by all.
Balaklava weekend 25-27 October was a great success attended by 120 old comrades and their wives/girlfriends/children. We tend to make a weekend of it, a group of us arriving on Friday and departing on the Sunday, culminating with the Balaklava Buffet on the Saturday night. The raffle and auction managed to raise £500 for the Help for Heroes charity and £500 for the MacMillan Cancer Support charity.
Next on the agenda was Remembrance Weekend. The march- ers started to assemble on Saturday afternoon in the Travelodge King’s Cross Royal Scot with an impromptu drinks party/social evening. Old friendships were rekindled and new ones made. We made our way to King’s Cross on the Sunday morning crack of dawn to meet up with Poppy Cabs and we were conveyed to the meeting place at St. Martin’s in the Field Church Trafalgar Square. Thirty-Five Old Comrades proudly marched with ten thousand others past the Cenotaph down Whitehall back to Horse Guards and dismissed to an afternoon of nostalgia and remember when’s.
The year finished with Christmas drinks for 40 old comrades or- ganised again by Gus Searcey at the Slug and Lettuce. Through- out the year four meetings of the ‘Old Gits’ was organised by Don Poole at Wetherspoons at Castle Wharf Nottingham, regu- larly attended by 20 ‘Old Gits’ the last one attended by Johnny and Kris Davies from New South Wales Australia.
This year we have lost 24 members of the 17/21L who have
REGIMENTAL JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL LANCERS (QUEEN ELIZABETHS’ OWN)
Grantham Branch (Death or Glory Boys)
joined the Senior Squadron during 2019.
RC
Picnic in the Park Auction B Squadron ‘Old Boys’
North West Branch (Balaklava Troop)
Welcome once again to the notes for the North West Branch, Blackpool. The Annual dinner was held on Saturday 6th April 2019 at the Parkhouse Hotel, Blackpool, as seems to be the drill these last few years we arrived on Friday to wet and windy weather, however come Saturday the clouds cleared and we had glorious sunshine and cloudless skies. The sunset out over the bay, a show of vivid streaks of orange across the sea. It was also
Sue Holtby, Vice President, Capt J Anani-Isaac, Chairman, Judith Bergstrand & Annabel Mac Gregor
Grand National Weekend with the Hotels and Boarding Houses full of people there for their annual pilgrimage to Aintree. So there was certainly a buzz about the place.
54 were able to join with us to dine, this included eight serv- ing members: Capt Anani-Isaac; Sgts Milakovic, Horne, and Wilkes; Cpls Cokayne and Frackleton; and LCpls Imber and
Sgt Wilkes, Cpl Cokayne, LCpl Imber, Elizabeth McAndrew, Ann Smiles, Sue Oswin & Neil Oswin