Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Deb GP wrote:You can join the CHA and wear a funny tie.

AKAP wrote:Thanks for that, good evidence for Richard Ruck's theory about balancing packs.
Going to the commando memorial a week on Sunday at Fort William to watch my father march past (all in their 80s now but love putting on the green beret/ and drinking whisky see if I can keep up with them).
There's normally some big wigs turn up so I will watch out for Buster and Roger (he was sometimes called Pongo but so were all his brothers I seem to remember).

The Formation and Origins of the Regiment
On 1st January 1966 The Royal Green Jackets was formed as a single Large Regiment. Its creation followed logically from the composition of The Green Jackets Brigade in 1958, which grouped together three single-battalion infantry regiments: The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (43rd & 52nd), The Kings Royal Rifle Corps and The Rifle Brigade.

It was no accident that these particular regiments, each having had such a distinguished record in the past, should have progressively, voluntarily and successfully come together, avoiding the stresses which often accompany amalgamations, because they shared a large measure of their history and their traditions. They, and The Royal Green Jackets as their heir, lay claim to being the innovators who developed much of the new thinking in the British Infantry in the fields of tactics, training, equipment and man-management from the mid-eighteenth century onwards.

The leadership of such distinguished officers as Henri Bouquet, Francis de Rottenburg, Coote Manningham and Sir John Moore generated a succession of advanced ideas later to be adopted as ideals by the rest of the Army: open-order tactics and mobility in place of rigid drills and ponderous movement, camouflage and concealment in place of serried ranks of red coats, individual marksmanship in place of massed musket fire, and intelligence and self-reliance in place of blind obedience instilled by fear of brutal punishment. These themes are recorded in the stories of four regiments whose fortunes were often closely linked to the point where they fuse together in The Royal Green Jackets today.

jhopgood wrote:My cousin, Syd, is RSM with the Greenjackets. He is of a size and inclination that you would not want to argue with him on a dark night.
Runs in the family. My Grandfather (and his) is reputed to have been Army wrestling champion before the first world war, in which he got gassed. There is supposed to be a photograph of him receiving the trophy from the King at the Royal Albert Hall, where such events were held in those days, but we have been unable to track it down.
Not very CH, but....