Page 200 - The Bugle 2018

Captain Jeremy Godfrey French of Sunnyside, The Green, Martock, Somerset died on 26th February 2018 at the age of eighty-seven.
Educated at Sherborne, Jeremy’s working life was divided between soldiering and big business. He was called up for National Service at the age of eighteen, enlisting in the Somerset Light Infantry and receiving his initial recruit’s training at the Light Infantry Training Centre at Bordon. Early on he was picked out as officer material and placed in X Cadre under the guiding eyes of Lieutenant Tony Collyns and 2nd Lieutenant Robert Waight.
Posted to the Mons Officer Cadet Training Unit at Aldershot he decided to try for a regular commission, and was transferred to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst where he put his name down for the Somerset Light Infantry. However, in his last term, he changed his first choice to the DCLI and was accepted – joining the 1st Battalion at Bulford in 1948.
During the next twenty-four years of soldiering he saw service in Bulford, Minden, Jamaica and Osnabruck as a rifle platoon commander, mortar officer and signals officer. He also carried out two tours of duty at the Regimental Depôt in Bodmin as training subaltern and training company commander.
His one experience as a staff officer was with Headquarters Land Forces Bahrain in 1958. This small and exceptionally happy headquarters had an extraordinary diverse command which included an infantry battalion based in Kenya but operating in Bahrain, an armoured car squadron based in Aden but operating in the Trucial States, a liaison unit in Kuwait, the Trucial Oman Scouts and the Sultan of Muscat’s Armed Forces.
On returning to what had now become the 1st Battalion Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry in 1961, he made the reluctant decision to resign his commission and strike out anew into a business career. Jeremy had been an outstanding officer – highly intelligent, personable, invariably courteous and a true friend both to his brother officers and soldiers. He could certainly have achieved senior rank had he remained in the army; however, the army’s loss proved to be the gain for Shell-Mex which he now joined. He served with the firm for the next twenty-four years, rising through the ranks as Retail Manager Northern Ireland, Lubricants Manager Head Office, Regional Manager Southern England and finally Manager Public Affairs Head Office.
Returning to Somerset in 1991, he settled down in Martock, close to three old friends from Light Infantry days – Ian Field, Bill Stevens and John Corringham. Never one to be idle he joined the Somerset County Committee of the Army Benevolent Fund, enjoying the regular meetings back at the old Taunton Depôt with yet more Light Infantry men, John Howard, John Mackie and Alastair Fyfe. He was also invited to become the President of the newly formed South Somerset Branch of the Light Infantry Association.
Jeremy was twice married – first to Ann Rowland (dissolved in 1960) and secondly to June Mary Wallis. His fifty-two years of marriage to June was a time of great happiness, and many Light Infantrymen remember the civilized hospitality and friendship that was always open to them at Martock. Sadly, Jeremy was not well in his last years, and June’s death in 2012 came as a particularly devastating blow. To his extended family we offer our sincere condolences.
Ron Marshall died on 3rd February 2018 at the age of eighty nine.
Born in the USA on 13th October 1928 he returned to Cornwall with his family at a very tender age. They settled in Bodmin, the town in which he was to spend the rest of his life except for his period of National Service.
Called up in 1947, he completed his recruit training at the DCLI Depôt, before being transferred to the REME. After further technical training he completed his National Service as a in Trieste – a period of his life which he thoroughly enjoyed. He was an entrepreneur par excellence, and, on return to Bodmin he opened, first one, then a number of electrical shops. He also bought the old Market House, converting it into seventeen shops which he leased out. With his old friend Regimental Serjeant Major Ron Delap he bought the ‘Garrison Club’ (now Syd’s Bar in the old Walker Lines which they ran as a ‘watering hole’ for ex-soldiers.
Although he only wore the DCLI badge for a short time, nobody could have been a more loyal supporter of the DCLI Association, attending every dinner and meeting almost to the time of his death.
Maurice Jones died on 7th January 2018 at the age of eighty-seven. Born at Morwenstow in March 1931, the eldest of four brothers, Royston, Trevor and Alan. In 1941 the family moved to Steppes Farm at Advent.
On leaving school he worked at Trewint Farm and then worked in Valley Truckle and for Jetwells Farm before being called up for his National Service. Enlisting in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry in 1952, he was trained at the Regimental Depôt in Bodmin. However, the 1st Durham Light Infantry sailed for Korea that Autumn, being brought up to full war establishment with drafts from other Light Infantry regiments, twenty-six of whom were made up of recruits passing out from the DCLI Depôt; Maurice was one of these. Most were posted to C Company under Major Johnny Tresawna but Maurice was earmarked as a signaller with HQ Company. He became a linesman, one of the more dangerous jobs, as the telephone cables were repeatedly cut by shell fire, requiring linesmen, usually in pairs but sometimes on their own to move out into the open and effect a repair.
He always remembered the fear he felt crawling along a cable under shellfire, to locate and then repair a break. His most terrifying experience was however in the training at Britannia Camp when everybody had to experience an advance only twenty five yards behind a creeping barrage.
Maurice survived his service in Korea unscathed, and, on return in 1954 went to work at the egg packing factory in Camelford where he met his first wife Sylvia. They moved to Treveighen and Maurice worked as a lorry driver out of Port Isaac Road. Their daughter Angela was born in 1963. They parted in 1981 and Maurice subsequently married Olive, who died in 1984; and then he then married Florence and they went to live in Camelford.
After his retirement in the 1970s he was self-employed in the building trade; he was a bell ringer, a member of the Tintagel Male Voice Choir and of the RAOB.
We extend our sympathy to his extended family and to brother Alan (who served with 1 SCLI in Osnabruck at Gibraltar, following his brother as a signaller).
HE ALWAYS REMEMBERED THE FEAR HE FELT CRAWLING ALONG A CABLE UNDER SHELLFIRE
206 REGIMENTAL ASSOCIATIONS
THE RIFLES