WELSH GUARDS ON PARADE: 29 APRIL

1st Battalion Welsh Guards on parade at Buckingham Palace after the Royal Wedding on Friday

The current Commanding Officer of the Welsh Guards, Lieutenant Charles Antelme DSO, sent us pictures of the guard his battalion mounted in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace on the day of the Royal Wedding.  It was yet another part of a perfectly organised day although Charles was modest enough to say that he experienced a degree of nerves.

The following week Charles became one of our newest Freeman being admitted after the Court of Wardens on 5 May.

The Company's links with the Welsh Guards are relatively new but as has been mentioned in earlier posts the linkage has already proved most beneficial.

Commanding officer, mounted on right and adjutant, mounted left, with the regimental sergeant major, dismounted further to the left.

HRH PRINCE OF WALES' RECEPTION FOR WELSH GUARDS AFGHANISTAN APPEAL 3 NOVEMBER

Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall held a reception at Clarence House on Wednesday to thank all those who had helped get the Welsh Guards Afghanistan Appeal so successfuly started. Despite it being yet another London Underground RMT strike day this did not seem to have prevented anyone invited from attending.  Military initiative had clearly been well exercised in creating successful alternative travel plans.

The Company has, as I reported in an earlier blog (15 August), a most fruitful link with the Welsh Guards and was delighted to contribute Drapers' Company charitable funds to the Appeal and also make the Hall available for a major fund raising dinner earlier this year.

Also in recent years members of the Company have gone on some very challenging exercises with the Regiment in such places as Belize.  Liveryman Caroline Curtis-Dolby has really enjoyed the rigours of the jungle and much impressed the Regiment.  So much so that she has managed to juggle running her jewellery design business (see http://www.ccdjewellery.com/ ) with being a member of the Appeal Committee.

At the close of the evening Prince Charles gathered us alll together in the hall of Clarence House and was most complimentary in his praise of the way in which everyone had played a part in getting this major initiative off the ground not only in London but equally in Wales. 

If you want to know more about the Appeal go to www.welshguardsappeal.com/

LUNCH WITH THE WELSH GUARDS 11 AUGUST

With Alastair and Rosemary I went to St James's Palace for lunch with the Welsh Guards, our affiliated regular Army unit.  Based in Aldershot the battalion was on guard duties in London and using the facilities provided for the Queen's Guard at St James's Palace.

Colonel Tom Bonas, the Regimental Adjutant and our principal contact with the regiment, met us and guided us through the labyrinth of the palace.

At lunch we were very well looked after by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Antelme DSO, his fellow officers and his charming wife Margaret.  Charles and Margaret are only recently married and back from a honeymoon in Sri Lanka.

It has been a time of a lot of travel as a detachment from the battalion added a distinctive dash of British military colour at the sixty fifth anniversary parade in Moscow to commemorate the end of what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War.  By all accounts the Welsh Guards had been most enthusiatically received.

A particular link beteween the Company and the Regiment is the Welsh Guards Afghanistan Appeal.  Jessica Gable-Smith from the appeal was also present.  Earlier this year in April we provided the Hall for an event to launch this excellent charity which is designed to support, as quickly and unbureaucratically as possible, those Welsh Guardsmen who have been casualties in Afghanistan.  This, of course, includes their families as well.  For more details go to  http://www.welshguardsappeal.com/

In recent years a number of non-Guards units have taken their turn on duty.  I was intrigued to see that 23 Pioneer Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps had left their mark.  I was honorary colonel of their TA sister regiment, 168 Pioneer Regiment,  and know that the Pioneers, the Army's equivalent of Ground Force, can turn their hand to anything involving carpentry, bricklaying etc.  Outside in a previously little used patio area they had put up a superb piece of decking well above the Alan Titchmarsh, Charlie Dimmock and Tommy Walsh standard. 

Links with the Welsh Guards are very much two way and they have invited a number of the Company to fly out to join them on an exercise in Kenya later this year.  A very popular and generous offer that was well oversubscribed.

As a Company we are very proud of our links with the regiment and are honoured to be of some support at a time when there is so much that needs to be done.