Just A Walk In The Sun with the Hereford Regiment Museum
A monthly podcast from the Herefordshire Light Infantry Museum. Hosted by Colonel Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts. Stroll with us around the highways and byways of Herefordshire while we explore the story of the our regiment and county in war and peace. Special guests, featured items from the museum's collection and highlights from the lives of those who served from our beautiful county... and a pint or two as well!
Just A Walk In The Sun with the Hereford Regiment Museum
Hoarwithy - Byzantine beauty and the mystery of a pub with no beer
In this month's delayed episode, Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts take a walk out to Hoarwithy, between Hereford and Ross-on-Wye on the banks of the river Wye. The impressive Byzantine / Romanesque / Tuscan beauty of St Catherine's Church catches their eye and they explore then local men commemorated on the War Memorial there.
The great great uncle of regular listener Steve Parkes was one on those commemorated here. George Edwards of the Herefordshire Regiment is buried in St Catherine's Churchyard and in 2018 a service was held to rededicate his repaired headstone. George was wounded at Gallipoli and in Palestine and died of wounds in Bristol. Other men Andy and Paul look into include 61 year old Royal Naval Reserve officer Ernest Baker, who died in September 1945.
The next port of call is the New Harp Inn below the church in the centre of the village. In 1908 the newly formed Herefordshire Regiment of the Territorial Force camped behind the pub as part of a recruiting drive. The men repaired to the New Harp and managed to drink the pub dry. A contemporary newspaper account reports that a fracas ensued and several windows were broken, which had to be paid for by the Regiment.
Despite their best efforts Paul and Andy weren't able to repeat this feat!
For more information about the Operation Blackout - last mission of WW2 - at Hereford Town Hall on 17th May 2025 at 6.30pm, click here:
https://herefordshirelightinfantrymuseum.com/events/op-blackout-presentation/
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Theme Tune - The Lincolnshire Poacher, performed by the outstanding Haverhill Silver Band.
This podcast generously supported by the Army Museums Ogilby Trust.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of just a Walk in the Sun , the monthly podcast from the Herefordshire Light Infantry Museum. The Sun's Out, or it's certainly been out this week, and we've ventured out of Hereford, which is rather wonderful. We're here in the Herefordshire Village of Hall Withy . I'm the Reverend Paul Roberts, and I'm joined by our curator, Colonel Andy Taylor. Andy, what an absolutely fabulous place we're in at the moment. Well,
Speaker 2:It is, and uh , and of course, it , it's almost home territory to you, <laugh> in the, in the building. Should I say Indeed, if we sound a bit echoy, it's because we're in St . Catherine's Church in Hall Withy , which is probably one of the hidden gems of Harry Footer . It's a fantastic church on the top of the hill in an Italian Romanesque star, Paul .
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I think if you look at the books, there are all sorts of words , um, uh, written about it. Pno , which , um, is the, the classic guide for churches calls it the most impressive Victorian church in the county. Um, and the inspector for what was then English heritage in 1987 when he was writing the description, I think, well, bedazzled is perhaps the word. Wow . That , that he used, he declared it as Run bogan , still with Byzantine French, Venetian Lombardi, Tuscan and Sicilian Romanesque influences.
Speaker 2:Wow. That would really impress the Harris audience. It
Speaker 1:Certainly would
Speaker 2:<laugh>.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But it is an absolutely fabulous church. It looks like something out of outta Tuscany, frankly. Um ,
Speaker 2:It
Speaker 1:Does. Or at least Port Marion , um, for those who know that. Yeah. And
Speaker 2:Very much a square tower, which is , is quite unusual. I think that the , the , the Red Sandstone , um, yeah. Italian style .
Speaker 1:That's, that's right. And it sits on a hillside , um, looking over the river, why it's an absolutely beautiful, beautiful setting. The carving is just outta this world really , um, really fine craftsmanship , um, influenced by the much earlier Keck design , um, school, sort of in Herre from the 12th century. No , it's a , it's a wonderful place to be and it's great. I haven't had to put an, an echo effect on with , it's just all natural .
Speaker 2:Yeah . And, and so anyway, Paul, I think that , um, <laugh> you , you , you , you've spoken quite enough about , uh, the church and we can now get on to talk about what we're here to talk
Speaker 1:About. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And , uh, every , uh, village and town in the county, except for a few blessed villages, which we've spoken about before , uh, had men go away to the First World War and had casualties, and Hall withy is no difficult, no different. Uh , there's the War Memorial, which is a tablet, a a white marble tablet on the wall within the church, which we are looking at now. And also within the churchyard here, there are five Commonwealth Wall Graves Commission head zones, but not quite five as
Speaker 1:Well. No, indeed, indeed. 'cause of course, you've been, you've been here before, haven't you, in connection with one of those, with one of those graves
Speaker 2:That's right. During the centenary of the , uh, first World War , um, hall with the repaired, one of the damaged headstones in the graveyard here , uh, to
Speaker 1:George Henry Edwards.
Speaker 2:George George Henry Edwards, it's a family headstone, and it's a family , uh, uh, plot, and he's buried there. But the headstone has been adopted by the Commonwealth Royal Graves Commission and is now maintained by them , uh, as happens in not many cases. But , but it's , it's not an unusual occurrence where the Commonwealth War Grace Commission have adopted a , a family headstone.
Speaker 1:That's right. It often happened, didn't it? When , uh, men and women died at home were buried at home, and the , the family erected a headstone before the Commonwealth War Graves Commission or the Imperial War Grave Commissioners was then really got underway with marking , uh, marking headstones. Yeah .
Speaker 2:Or , or they were buried, buried in the family plot. Yeah . Yep . And I think this, this, in this case, Edward is, is buried in the, in the family plot. Uh , but it's got a, a , um, an inscription saying that , um, he died of wounds.
Speaker 1:Hmm . The , um, the , the inscription says that it was the 4th of February, 1918. Right.
Speaker 2:Okay. And he was wounded in the Middle East, and it , it does actually say that, that he died as a result of wounds suffered in the Middle East. He was one of the original volunteers to the Harry Fitzer Regiment in 1914. And , uh, he'd served it at Gallipoli, at Silver Bay , was wounded it Silver Bay . We are not, what wrong? We dunno . If he was wounded, he was evacuated from Silver Bay , so he could have been wounded, or it could have been sickness. He then recovered, rejoined the battalion in the Middle East, served with them, and then was wounded again, we think, at the third battle of Gaza , uh, was evacuated to England and then died sometime later. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Um ,
Speaker 1:And , and , and it's funnily enough because we've been contacted by , uh, one of his , uh, great, great nephews , uh, Steven Parks , who is a listener to the podcast and , and quite independently , uh, he heard our last episode when we were talking about people being commemorated on several war memorials. And he said that his great great uncle , uh, George , uh, was commemorated both here and at Selek . And , um, and it was wonderful to be , to say, well, actually, we are going to hall with Ian . We'll be , uh, we'll be looking into your , uh, your great, great uncle , uh, for the subject of our next, the next podcast. So,
Speaker 2:So , so we hope you're listening
Speaker 1:Indeed, indeed, <laugh> . Um ,
Speaker 2:But , but the gravestone is, is quite ornate in some ways. Uh, there are crossed rifles on it, on a , uh, a , a a a taller cross. Mm . And then there is a representation of the Harry Fit regimental cat badge. I think it must have been , uh, made by a local stone mason who , uh, was not used to carving animals because the lion on the , um, the cat badge on the headstone, it's probably quite the most unusual lion I've ever seen. It .
Speaker 1:It's quite rustic, isn't it? I mean, I think, or , um, I think in carving terms, it might be known as naive. It , it rather puts you in mind of, of those depictions of lion on medieval , uh, manuscripts. Yes . You know, where you think they, they've read a description of a lion, but they've never,
Speaker 2:Actually never seen it , seen one.
Speaker 1:That's , um, I mean, it's quite, it's quite charming. Yeah . And it's, and of course, away from Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones, which always feature the cat badge , um, there aren't very many representations of the cat badge of the regiments in stone. Are they on other headstones?
Speaker 2:Uh , that , that's right. And I mean, certainly with the Harry Forger regiment, there are not many. But then of course, there aren't many casualties as such , uh, uh, from the Harry Forger regimen buried in the county.
Speaker 1:So , um, so yes, on the 4th of February, 2018, there was a service held here in, in the Churchyard to, to unveil and to rededicate the repaired , um, headstone. Um, and it , it , it looked like a , um, a really , um, really moving service . Yeah .
Speaker 2:It , it certainly was. I mean, there was, there were , uh, I think Piper, if I remember correctly, from , from one of the Irish regiments, and it was a lovely sunny afternoon. It was quite fresh. The wind was blowing. I seem to remember being on the top of the hill. The Robert Legion standards were here, and they were, they were certainly flapping around. Yes . Yeah . But it was, there was a good turnout of probably, oh, about or 80 people, I think. Uh , lots of local people and quite a few descendants of the , um, of , of the Edwards families. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . So it really was an extremely moving Yeah . Event.
Speaker 1:Yeah . Yeah. No, wonderful. 'cause , um, George was , um, uh, was born in Hend London in 1893 and baptized here in St . Catherine's. They set up home at Red Rail here in, in Hall withy . And , and they had seven children and two others served in the First World War Yeah . As well. One was a pre-war territorial with the Army Service Corps , uh, company here that the lesser known , I suppose , um,
Speaker 2:That's
Speaker 1:Right . Of the , of the Herefords. Yeah .
Speaker 2:But I , but I think probably because lots of these men were working on the farms mm-hmm . And they were wagoners and used to working with horses that it was quite natural for them because of those civilian skills to serve within the , the Army Service Corps . Mm . Because that was their, their main , um, vehicle was the wagon Gs that , that wagon , general service.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And another brother immigrated to Australia before the war and served with the , um, with the Australians. So, you know, it , it , I think it just shows wherever you, wherever you look in the county, there are those, there are those stories aren't there .
Speaker 2:Yeah . And, and large families and people going in slightly different directions. Mm-hmm . And of course, with a , with a , a large family of, you know, 8, 9, 10, even a dozen children, then the oldest one probably hardly knew the youngest one unless the eldest one was a daughter, of course. And then was obliged to probably act as a , as, as a , a mini mother bringing up the younger ones.
Speaker 1:That's , that's right. And there are, as we said, there are four other men who died during the first and the second World War. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Who are , who are buried here. Uh , one of them , uh, Lieutenant Commander Ernest Godfrey Baker is quite an unusual man. Interestingly, he was also commemorated by a family stone, but that became beyond repair. And Commonwealth, Wal Grace Commission have replaced his headstone. He was 61 when, when he died in
Speaker 2:19, 19 45,
Speaker 1:Man . Yes.
Speaker 2:And , and he died, I think after the end of hostility.
Speaker 1:He , he did, he did , uh, looking at the Commonwealth Wal Grace Commission , um, database, they record that he was serving , um, with the Royal Naval Reserve, which of course indicates that he was a professional sailor , uh, rather than the volunteer reserve, which , um, uh, which drew from all , um, backgrounds, and they list him as serving on HMS minus , well, we tend to say on, because we think of HMS as being ships, but HMS minus was a sure . Establishment based at Loof . Ah , right. Um , so I wonder whether he , uh, with , um, with his background perhaps , uh, was involved in East Coast convoys and, and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:I , I suspect he probably was. And, and the , the shore bases, they were like the holding units. Mm-hmm . The individuals would be posted to ships, and when they were paid off from the ship waiting to be posted to another ship, they were then taken on strength of the shore unit. That's right. So they often appear time and time again through a soldier's records that they were at HMS . Well, victory was one, for example, and , and they would keep coming back, but it , all it meant was that they were in between ships.
Speaker 1:That actually digging a little bit deeper, it turns out that he had served with the Royal Navy between 1901 and 1912 as an able-bodied seamen, and then moved to the Merchant Navy , um, serving throughout the First World War and ending up as a chief officer, so mm-hmm . Effectively , uh, second in command on the deck of , of a , of a ship he was born in Monmouth Sherp . I wonder whether they sort of semi-retired here, bought a place, and then he was called, you know Yeah . Called back up during the Second World War. But it's interesting what you say about those ships between ships, if you like, because another , uh, another of the , um, men buried here, George Thomas, he's recorded as being on HMS vivid. Well, HMS Vivid was the shore station at Davenport. Ah , right . It was where they , it was where they trained Stoker. And his rank is Stoker second class. That
Speaker 2:Explains it. Yeah .
Speaker 1:You know, and sadly, he died at the age of 18. So I, well ,
Speaker 2:If again, if he was on the shore establishment, he, in fact, all of the, the individuals buried here are all Downers died. Yes, they are . Yeah . And , and it's interesting because you , you never actually know what that means. Uh , with , with , um, Edwards, he, he died as a result of wounds. We are looking at Thomas now, George Thomas, and he was under training, so perhaps he died of, well, let me just think. October 18 po possibly Spanish flu.
Speaker 1:Possibly flu. Yeah , yeah . Or ,
Speaker 2:Or as a result of an accident mm-hmm <affirmative> . And , and of , of course, the others , um, or Downers died. They , and you , we just don't know whether it was a wounds or sickness or accident or, or whatever. But it, it's fascinating to think about these things and sometimes by looking at , at local newspaper reports, you might be lucky, and it might give a report of the funeral. Yeah . But often they don't. Or the account of the funeral is, is so scandal . There's no real detail.
Speaker 1:No, I , I think , I think usually you are often a bit more successful finding details for those who died at home, because there are people about going back to George Edwards, you know, we know that he died at the second Southern General Hospital in , in Bristol, which is now South Mead's Hospital. Yeah . Um , and , um, and Steve , uh, Steve , uh, parks, his great-great nephew mentioned to me that he understood that families , um, who wanted to effectively repatriate the bodies of their , uh, of their family members back to home parishes, and were required to pay a penny a mile.
Speaker 2:Oh, from, from uk?
Speaker 1:From uk from
Speaker 2:Repatriation. Yes. Because , because bodies were not repatriated from overseas, but within uk Oh , I didn't, I hadn't realized that
Speaker 1:Very good resource called this , um, record of Soldiers Effect . Yeah . That, that gives details. It's mainly a pay document, but tells you where the, the , the outstanding pay and any money went from soldiers who died during service, both in active service and at home. And interestingly, against his account, there's a, there's a charge of, of a chillings , um, that's been made in pencil. And I wonder whether that was Right . The cost of the, of,
Speaker 2:I'm just trying to think now . Eight shillings . Eight twelves is 96, 96 miles.
Speaker 1:It did seem, it did seem quite, quite a lot. It looked like more like SA miles than a penny mile . But actually, if you did that, it , it would work out at about, right. Yeah . So maybe it was taken out of his estate. Who knows? Who knows? I suspect we never suspect we never will. But there's plenty more to find out here, isn't there?
Speaker 2:There is . Well , I was just looking at the, well, within the church, still with at the War memorial. Mm . And we've spoken about war memorials before. And again, this is a different style here in that it includes what appears to be the date of death of the individuals. Mm . But once you look at it, some of those dates don't quite ring true, do they?
Speaker 1:No, no, it's very, it's very odd. There's certainly, there's certainly one individual that we know , um, was killed in action at Gallipoli in 1915, James
Speaker 2:Inni . Yeah .
Speaker 1:He , um, he's recorded here as having , uh, died in 1919.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And, and again, I, we , we know that he was killed on the 29th of November, 1915, and he's buried in Lala Barbara Cemetery at Silver Bay . And I've actually seen, I've been there and seen his headstone , uh, but he's recorded on the War memorial as, as a year of death, 1919. And when we were driving down, we, we were having a sort of, a bit of a , a , a preamble and planning about what we were going to say. And we mentioned this, and we've, we were wondering why this could be , and perhaps, and again, this is only a perhaps , uh, he was , um, missing, presumed, killed in <inaudible> , and his death was only confirmed in 1919. That's the only thing we can think
Speaker 1:Of that , that's right. Uh , you , you do vary occasionally on war memorials, see , see initials and names chipped out and replaced. We know where mistakes have been made. So it seems, it seems strange that, that that mistake has perpetuated through. But again, it's perhaps one of those ones that we won't know. Um, but for many, sadly, for many families whose relatives were posted as missing , um, it was often months before they, before they heard. And, and I think it had to be 12 months before they could be officially declared and assumed to have been killed. But of course, particularly in early campaigns in the, in the First World War record keeping often wasn't brilliant. And, and if the person hadn't been officially posted as missing in the right place, then that
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. And, and certainly from , uh, Gallipoli, if they became prisoners of the Turks mm-hmm . Then they were even more remote. Yeah . And there , there were lots of individuals that were taken to prisoners of the Turks, and their status as a prisoner was , wasn't notified for months, and I think in some cases, even years later. So the families had assumed that the missing had developed into a killed ,
Speaker 1:Of course, the, particularly those territorial units that drew from small geographic areas, families spoke to other families, people who had lost people or had missing people. So there was always that tantalizing hope that somebody who was missing might actually be a Turkish prisoner of war. Yeah . Because you knew somebody down the road. Yeah . Um , it took them 12 months to be , uh, confirmed as a POW. So, you know, that, that that's one of those , the real tragic elements of the war, wasn't it, that unknowing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it's also fascinating as well that the , at the end of the war when , uh, the prisoners were released , uh, and this happened in the First World War, and certainly in the Second World War, perhaps even more so in the Second World War, in that they, the , the , the prisoner of war camps were, the gates were thrown open and the individuals just left. Mm mm Many of them just left and headed. I'm , I'm talking really in Europe now, and , and headed generally west. Yes. Yeah . And they met , uh, allied troops who looked after them , fed them generally , uh, gave them a new uniform, looked after them , and in some cases got them to local airfield, and the REF flew them back to uk. They arrived at an REF airfield in the uk and didn't really, weren't expected , didn't know what to do, had been prisoners for three or four years, and decided to go home. And they went home and knocked on the door and said, hello, mum , I'm here. You know , which, which is it it , to , to modern day accounting for literally everything. Yes. Yeah . Seems almost unbelievable that that could happen.
Speaker 1:Ab Absolutely. And in the , in this age of instant communication as well. Whereas, you know, where , where perhaps if somebody was released nowadays in similar circumstances, the first thing they'd have done would be to try and se send a text message or make a phone call, or, you know, send an email or , uh, back home to say, I'm on my way. Yeah . Um , and of course there was telephones and telegraphs then, but actually people were quite keen just to get home, weren't they? Yeah . But also,
Speaker 2:You know, they , they were at the front. Mm . They weren't, those things weren't there. And as they moved back, I suspect sometimes they got bounced along so quickly.
Speaker 1:I think you're right. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I remember once having a , a flight canceled and traveling by train, and my wife was due to pick me up from the airport, but obviously couldn't because the flight was canceled. And I, I came by train, but I couldn't phone her anywhere because all the , as I was , uh, changing stations, I never had any time No. To phone her. Yeah. <laugh> , she , she did eventually pick me up. It's alright , <laugh> . I did get her. Yes .
Speaker 1:Well, you , you , you , you're here to tell the tale. Well, looking at the order of service for that , um, uh, that service in 1918, I noticed at the very end everybody was welcome to the new Harp Inn in Hall withy . Um, and I, I believe we've got a bit of a , a story about the , the new heart . Well,
Speaker 2:We have, but, but just before we, we go, the, the last thing at that service before the blessing was the national anthem. Now, I, I'm very proud that whenever we sing two verses of the national anthem, I know the second verse of the national anthem, and we sang two verses of the national anthem on that occasion. But the second verse was one that I'd never heard of before. I won't sing it, but I'll just, I'll , I'll just read it. Not on this land alone , but be God's mercy known on every shore. Lord, make the nation see that all humanity should form one family, the wide world, or Mm . And I think that in some ways that's perhaps a better second verse to the national anthem than the one we all generally sing .
Speaker 1:Given, you know, that theme of reconciliation. I noticed that they also sang, we plow the fields and scatter and noted that that was originally a German hymn from the 1780s. So the , this idea that actually we are looking to, to reconcile , um, the , the warring nations, you know, and , and mm . And the sort of history that we are involved with, it isn't about glorifying war. It is about keeping those stories of, of sacrifice alive , um, for future generations. Yeah .
Speaker 2:A absolutely. And hopefully we can all, all learn from , uh, the experiences of the past. Yeah , yeah . Which are perhaps extremely relevant at the current time. Indeed, indeed . We weren't saying more
Speaker 1:About that indeed . No, no. Um, so , um, uh,
Speaker 2:I was , anyway , I think that was a good suggestion of yours to walk down
Speaker 1:The hill. We're gonna walk down the , um, the , the hill to the , um, to the new harp and , um, and see what we can find out there.
Speaker 2:Well, here we are then Paul, this , this looks , um, pretty good. Yeah . Yeah . Very nice. Let's see. I can see you've forgotten your wallet again,
Speaker 1:As always, you know, standing , standing order.
Speaker 2:What would you like a half of <laugh> ? We, we know that there are individuals from a hall with you that serve with Harry Futcher regiment, but there's more to hall with the , uh, and connections with the Harry Futcher regiment than just the first World War. When the Harry Cher Regiment was formed in 1908, their first annual camp was a recruiting march around the county , and one of the places they stopped overnight was Hall withy . Oh ,
Speaker 1:Wonderful.
Speaker 2:And I'm assuming, I know that's dangerous, but I'm assuming that it was on the field, which is now the , the Trek camp .
Speaker 1:Oh, the camp, the , the camp site behind would be
Speaker 2:Camp camp is literally behind the pearl .
Speaker 1:It would make sense. It's a lovely, lovely flat expanse of ground heading out towards , uh, towards the river. Make an ideal , an ideal campsite.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Actually, we, we, I , I was watching on television the other night, the , the , the television program Detectorists. Mm . And I just wonder if anyone's ever been out there with a, with a, a metal detector, so , oh , I
Speaker 1:Dunno . I'm sure they have seeing what's
Speaker 2:Around there , because one of the , the great things about , um, going to military sites, if you want to , um, search for things, then you always find where the rubbish chip was. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Because the rubbish chip was always a big hole dug in the corner somewhere, and everything was thrown into it. Often things got thrown into it, which shouldn't have been thrown into it. Yeah . But were never recovered, so that's the place. Mm-hmm . So perhaps we ought to have a walk around the field and see if we can see , um,
Speaker 1:See what we can find. Yeah . Indeed, indeed . Interesting.
Speaker 2:We , anyway, to , to , to go back to the story , uh, they camped overnight here on their march around the county. And it is perhaps the fact that the recruiting Raden Hall with you was not quite as successful as it could have been because there was an account in the , uh, Hereford times that the regiment, the battalion drank the pub drive . Oh, wow. And when the landlord could produce no more beer, several of his windows were broken. <laugh>. Whoa . Actually, just thinking about that , I wonder if , uh, if if George Edwards actually saw this recruiting parade, he
Speaker 1:Could well have done. Yeah . We are not , we're not quite sure when he moved into the, into the village. Yeah . But , um, but he , but he
Speaker 2:Might have been
Speaker 1:Indeed . Yeah .
Speaker 2:He might been one of those. Um, yeah. But, but yes. And, and the , and the, the regiment, how to pay for the windows to be repaired. I think it was 13 and six Haney or something. But , uh, an an interesting little story. Yes. And , um, looking around, I wonder which windows the , uh, we , we paid for <laugh> .
Speaker 1:I wonder, I wonder Now that's fantastic, isn't it? I think that's a lovely, that's a lovely story. Yes. I think just looking , uh, George would've been 15 at the time, so unless he , uh, uh, I dunno , did did they take drummers and bugles on at that, at that time? At that age they
Speaker 2:Did, but, but it , but if he did enlist, then, then he was discharged again because his regimental number is a , is a , an autumn 1914 enlistment
Speaker 1:Number. Well , I I I , I'm sure the , I'm sure the day the regiment arrived and, and broke some windows probably went down <laugh> . I'm , I'm ,
Speaker 2:They were talking about it for a long time in
Speaker 1:Village history. Yes . That's , that's absolutely wonderful. That's
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Yeah . But , but again, it's, you know, it , it just shows the link that there is between the Harry Fit Regiment, territorial regimen, and the county and that sense of place. And they , they marched, well, it was a , a 10 or a 12 day march around the county. Uh , we're not quite certain exactly what route they took, but we know they marched through Led Brie and there are photographs of them marching through Led Brie , and they march through Ledbury and camped at Alsbury overnight. Mm . And , uh, the photographs that were taken in Ledbury were taken by Luke Tilley , who was a , uh, uh, a well-known photographer and stationer and printer in Ledbury . Uh, he then apparently went back to his studios and developed the photographs, printed them as postcards, cycled out to Alsbury <laugh> and sold these postcards in the wet bar. Oh ,
Speaker 1:The wet bar.
Speaker 2:Well , yeah, because these were the days of the age of Temperance, and each army camp had a dry and wet bar.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see. Right. Yes .
Speaker 2:The dry bar didn't sell alcohol. Yeah . The wet bar did , sold alcohol. Yeah . So Luke Lee , you know , no flies on him. He sold them in the wet bar, wet bar
Speaker 1:Wonder , wonderful business sense there to seize that opportunity. Yeah . Get them developed and get them back out there.
Speaker 2:But the Hereford Times also printed a supplement covering the , the recruiting march. And I think they, they, without doubt, they were away for a weekend. So they would've been quite a big church prayed and a drumhead service. Yeah . With, I dunno , they probably would've invited the bishop and people, all sorts of people. I , I never thought about it before, but I don't think I've ever seen the name of a regimental Padre prior to the First World War.
Speaker 1:Hmm . That's interesting. Something we might have to have to look into. Yeah. I suppose taking a step backwards, I mean, the reason for having this, this recruiting march was because the territorial force was, was a new thing beginning in April, 1908. There had been the volunteers before, but the volunteers were under no compulsion to move over into the new Territorials.
Speaker 2:No, they weren't. And
Speaker 1:Plenty , plenty did, of course. Yeah . But, but one of the reasons for the formation of the new territorial force was because the volunteers were effectively a privately funded organization and had really run out of money in a lot of parts of the country. Yeah .
Speaker 2:They , they also, they had no, no , um, requirement to serve overseas. Mm-hmm . And the experiences of the Army in the B War had been such that the regular army had been found wanting, and the Reserve army had been found wanting, and so they were massive , uh, reorganization of the forces post the Bo War . And one of the leading individuals in the reorganization was a general called Douglas Hague, who then reorganized the Army and then had to, you know, fight his reorganized army.
Speaker 1:Yes . Yep .
Speaker 2:But a , as a result of that, in 1908, the militia and the, and the rifle volunteers were both disbanded. And the new territorial force was started , uh, within Harry Fit . The militia generally didn't like the reorganization, and they did not , uh, join the territory of force , uh, in great numbers. Mm-hmm . The rifle volunteers almost moved across to a man . Yeah . Yeah . Um , and, and so the , the history flows naturally from the rifle volunteers to the , to , to the , uh, to the, to the Harry Fit Regimen. Well , the militia almost stops.
Speaker 1:No. And interestingly, of course, they, they donated their silver or their mess silver to the ta to the city of Hereford, didn't they? Yeah . They , they did hoping that they would one day reform. Yeah . They didn't want it to go to the new Territorials.
Speaker 2:Correct. And, and all of their chats as well , their , um, their , their , their crockery, their mess crockery in all sorts. I think the exact wording was , uh, to be held by the city , uh, on, on sort of for safe deposit until the militia is reformed. Yes. Well, we're still
Speaker 1:Waiting
Speaker 2:20 years later. The militia has not yet been reformed. No . So, so the, the , the , the town hall now has , um, uh, got a very smart silver room where they've got , uh, a lot of the , uh, malicious silver on display , and it , it , it looks really quite impressive. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, it's been, it's been wonderful taking this walk around. Yeah , it does . Paul Withi , um, uh, we've , uh, we've seen the , the Romanesque beauty of the, of St . Catherine's. We've , um, uh, we've wondered which windows we've paid for as a , as a , as a regiment , um, following that, that disastrous running outta beer. I'm very happy to say that the beer served today , um, seems to be in plenty of supply.
Speaker 2:I, I think we're
Speaker 1:Okay. I don't think we're, I don't think we are likely to drink the place dry are we, Andy? You and me? Uh,
Speaker 2:Well, not if you haven't brought your wallet <laugh>.
Speaker 1:So in the meantime, it's been , uh, it's been great to , uh, to share these, these thoughts and these, these studies with you. And, and until the next time , uh, we bid you farewell.
Speaker 2:Yeah , farewell and carry on .
