71 (CITY OF LONDON) SIGNALS YEOMANRY REGIMENT RETITLING DINNER: 28 MARCH

Regimental badge of 71 Signals Yeomanry Regiment

Regular readers of the blog will know that we have a close affiliation with 71 (City of London) Signals Yeomanry Regiment.  Recently the regiment has been re-titled to include a City of London designator.  In discussion with the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Tim Allen, we decided to make the Hall available for a dinner to commemorate this auspicious change of title.

The regiment invited a wide range of supporters including the mayors of the boroughs and deputy lieutenants where the regiment has drill halls as well as those who support the Territorial army on a city wide basis such as Sir David Brewer the Lord Lieutenant of London.  In addition there were a large number of senior military personalities present to mark this event including General Officer Commanding London District, Major General William Cubitt CBE.

It was therefore quite an occasion.  It was also good to see that all ranks of the regiment had been invited to be present.  Many members of the regiment now have considerable operational experience which in turn brings a high level of self-confidence. 

It was one of Lieutenant Colonel Tim Allen's last events with the regiment in command as he handed over a few days later to move on to an assignment at the Joint Force Headquarters at Northwood.  He gave an excellent speech that commemorated the purpose of the evening most fittingly.  I think I can say that for Colonel Tim it was an excellent end to what has been a most successful tour and one where the links between the regiment and the Company have been further reinforced.

71 (CITY OF LONDON) YEOMANRY SIGNALS REGIMENT OFFICERS' CLUB DINNER: 21 FEBRUARY

This dinner, Alastair Ross and I all got a mention in the Daily Telegraph Service Dinners bit of the paper's Court and Social page.  It thus clearly deserves a mention in my blog.  For those to whom the Daily Telegraph  of 22 February is not immediately to hand I can inform that it announced that on Monday 21 February I attended the 29th Annual Officers' Club Dinner of 71 (City of London) Yeomanry Signal Regiment at the Cavalry and Guards Club, Piccadilly.

I have only tangentially mentioned this unit in my blog.  So, to start from the beginning.  It is one of our four military affiliations.  The other three being the HMS Monmouth, Welsh Guards and RAF Shawbury.

The naming and role of Territorial Army units is not a subject for the faint-hearted to tackle and units with a yeomanry tradition have particularly complex stories.  I will simplify and in so doing I hope I do not cause any unintended  offence. The yeomanry has roots stretching back to the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars when individuals who possessed horses volunteered to form cavalry regiments for local defence.  Initially this was against the threat of a French invasion. Many yeomanry units trace their origins back to that time.  However existence was not neccessarily continuous.  The nineteenth century was usually a story of disbandments and sudden resuscitations, normally in response to the, surprisingly, frequent French invasion scares that occurred throughout the period.

In Haldane's reforms around 1910 the yeomanry was incorporated into the Territorial Army as reserve cavalry.  However the decision in 1935 to mechanise the Army and dispense with horses meant another series of major changes occurred.  Many yeomanry regiments were redesignated as Royal Signals units and had distinguished service in the Second World War in this role. 

Since the 1950s it has, unfortunately, been a story of continuous reduction. Today, 71 (City of London) Yeomanry Signals Regiment combines the heritage and traditions of six former regiments in three squadrons:

• 265 Kent and County of London Yeomanry Sharpshooters Support Squadron (Volunteers) located Bexleyheath.
• 47 Middlesex Yeomanry Signal Squadron (Volunteers) located Uxbridge and Southfields.
• 68 Inns of Court and City & Essex Yeomanry Signal Squadron (Volunteers) located City of London, Whipps Cross and Chelmsford

The regiment has a home defence communications role.

The Company is involved with the regiment in two events next month.  A visit by all ranks to the Hall on 4 March for lunch and a look round and a major event on 28 March to launch the regiment formally with its City of London title.  More news of these in due course.

Back to the dinner.  Brigadier Charles le Gallais, the regiment's honorary colonel, presided and Lieutenant Colonel Tim Allen, commanding officer, responded with an interesting overview of the regiment's current wide range of activity.  In common with all volunteer units these days it stretched from the local drill halls all the way to Afghanistan by way of a lot of places in between.

Although I am a member of the Cavalry and Guards Club I do not visit too often these days as it is currently a bit too far west for me.  But I was pleased to note that, as always, they put on a good dinner.

More news about the Drapers' relationship with the regiment over the next few weeks.

FIRST AID NURSING YEOMANRY RECEPTION: 24 NOVEMBER

The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteer Corps) is an organisation that has changed much in its hundred and three year long history. 

Initially raised as a women's only auxiliary during the expansion of the Territorial Army before the First World.  The website  www.fany.org.uk/ gives more history of the Corps and describes its current role.  Our links with it are through one of our sponsored units 71 Yeomanry Signal Regiment.  More details of the regiment, courtesy of that great institution the Army Rumour Service, are included at http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/71_(Yeomanry)_Signal_Regiment_(V

During World War Two it carried out a variety of roles, one of them being a source of volunteers for the Special Operations Executive.  One of Rosemary's aunts was in the FANY and worked as a radio operator in Trincomanlee, Ceylon communicating daily with an individual - she was never allowed to know names or locations - somewhere behind Japanese lines in South East Asia.  The reason for this one-to-one relationship is that users of morse code each has a distinctive 'voice' that is impossible to replicate.  This made it effectively impossible for anyone trying to try and impersonate either the agent or operator.

Despite the anonymity and the total professionalism of the organisation she says that when an agent failed to report in and was presumed captured or killed absolute despondency reigned.  On the brighter side human nature being what it is agent and operator did on occasion meet up and lived happily ever after.

Today it has a role to support Civil and Military authorities within the United Kingdom during any major event, incident, or in planning, so as to protect life and relieve human suffering.

The reception on Wednesday 24 November was to mark the move of the FANY Headquarters from Horseferry Road, where it has been based at the former London Scottish drill hall to a new site at Rochester Row.

HRH the Princess Royal is Commandant-in-Chief of the corps attended and, with a dexterity that always impresses me, managed to talk to all the two hundred or so guests invited, plus members of the Corps.

The FANY is an enthusiastic and public-spirited team.  They put a great deal into what they do and, despite the present changes taking place in Defence and government generally, are clearly strongly supported.