Bats In The Belfry

It was not that we had better things to do it was other things that had to be done. One of those days, so we picked up highlights on the news about the Royal wedding. It seems to have gone quite well and our good wishes to the couple.

There was something that did catch the eye and clicked on to the random memory between the ears. It was the insignia of The Royals, now part of The Blues and Royals but formerly the 1st Royal Dragoons. Prince Harry was wearing the uniform.

A few weeks after Churchill retired as PM I had a row with the then Commanding Officer of the regiment. He was in his Command Ferret Scout Car leading the regiment on the move and I was standing at a cross roads and in the way of his preferred route.

The difficulty was that we were on manoeuvres and the General Officer Commanding had changed the directions at a very late stage because the Divisional Engineers had discovered that a key bridge was not up to the weights expected.

I had been instructed to redirect several of the Army’s finest cavalry regiments, one of which was the 4th Hussars, Churchill’s regiment, contrary to the operation orders that they had been given earlier.

This was going to tax my powers of persuasion. The Royals CO was one of the more difficult. For some reason he found my studied politeness and command of language more annoying than had I tried a stream of obscene abuse. Perhaps it was a class thing.

To add insult to injury for him it was not long after that we played cricket against the regiment and not only did The Royals lose, I bowled him for a duck. Give him his due, he took it like a true sportsmen and even bought me a beer.

I hope the transport arrangements today all went to plan and nobody came up against a bolshie lower rank standing in the middle of the road informing them of changed orders which were not to their liking.

We shall have a bottle of Saumur fizz tonight I think, it is a fine town with a lovely tank museum.