OurStory

On Saturday 27 September 2008 Shirley, Sarah and I travelled to Hatfield, Herefordshire England to attend a service for the Laying-up of the Queen’s and Regimental Colours of the Rhodesian Light Infantry, also the unveiling and re-dedication of the RLI Trooper Statue.

Although Hatfield is only just over a one hour drive from Aldershot, it was an early start on the Sunday morning, so a night-stop was called for.

This service was carried out in the Chapel and the Armoury of Hatfield House by kind permission of the Marquess of Salisbury. Salisbury in Rhodesia was named after his family and the Marques’s brother who was a member of the RLI was killed in action.

The Sunday started at the ‘Comet Hotel’ in Hatfield town centre. The hotel was named after the world’s first jet engine airliner which was manufactured by the local De Havilland aircraft company. Although the hotel is called the ‘Comet’, the king size model of an aircraft sitting on the top of a pole in the forecourt is that of a De Havilland ‘Dove’ or it‘s sister aircraft for which I cannot remember it‘s name .

There were over one hundred and fifty RLI members and visitors being registered, and in so doing, receiving a complimentary bag containing a souvenir program, an RLI glass tankard and were given a clip-on lapel name tag plus the extra security protection of a plastic RLI wrist band. (The type put on in hospitals when going for an operation) this tag was green and had the picture of the trooper statue on it.

We were taken by four coaches to main entrance of Hatfield House where the steps were graced by six standard bearers holding the flags of the Rhodesian Light Infantry and also eight buglers of the ‘Rifles’ who played a fanfare to invite us in.

The chapel is big for the household but too small to seat one hundred and fifty botties, so well over one hundred of us (the overflow) were seated in the armoury. Sarah was fortunate enough to be seated immediately behind Col Ron Reid-Daly and we were lucky to be able to converse with him before they found him and moved him post haste to the upper echelon of the chapel.

There were four large television screens in the armoury so that we could see and hear the service. The two venues were next to each other and connected by a short passage. So short in fact that when Pipe Major John Spoor in his splendid Scottish regalia
played the bagpipes and marched from the armoury into the short passage to the chapel, in doing so he disappeared from our sight and immediately re-appeared on our television screens

After this part of the service we went back to our coaches and were transported to the bank of the River Lee where the Trooper statue was draped in the Green and White. After a short service and speeches which mentioned the Rhodesian Air Force and it’s air cover and helicopter transportation into forward areas. The Marquess of Salisbury then unveiled the Trooper Statue with the Last Post played by the buglers of the Rifles Band. Many wreaths of flames lillies were laid at the base of the statue.

Following this we were entertained by the playing and marching of the Rifles Band and Buglers.

The Trooper Statue is sighted on a wide grass bank with it’s back to a commercial forest of tall straight pine trees, fronted by a copse of deciduous trees. The statue faces out across the River Lee to the far bank where the deciduous trees were turning into their autumn colours.

I am pleased to say that on, what some call, Mud Island we had a grand day of complete sunshine.

With about 150 RLI and their visitors returning by the coaches to the Comet Hotel bar, all at the same time, it was complete chaos, I am sure the bar staff did not know what had hit them.

We were then ushered into the dining room where we were seated at round tables of ten, only one couple on our table was from the RLI. There was a fly pass by a Dakota but it did not have the spot on timing of the Rhodesian Air force in that, during more speeches, lunch was announced by the hotel staff and at the same time the Dakota flew over in it’s first of four or five passes. Needless to say nearly everyone gapped it to the car park. Being air force, been there, done that, seen a Dak before, I was one of the first in the lunch queue.

The fly past was eventually followed by an excellent lunch and after more speeches a RLI World Wide Raffle was drawn for many prizes.
Although I had a wishbone in my quarter of chicken, no prizes came to our table of ten.

It turned out to be a grand weekend and just after 4 o’clock the Theobald's headed back to Aldershot with Sarah driving, there were bottles of wine on all the tables.

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Special thank you to Rusty Theobald for making these photos and his thoughts available to ORAFs. Thank you Rusty
This article is No. 108 in Rusty's collection of memories from his Service Days