NEWSLETTER JULY 2020

Newsletter for ‘Keeping in Touch’ July 2020 - Please note any information for the newsletter to be passed on to Jan Bridle anytime; also if anyone has changed their email address or set up a new one could they please let Jan know.

Branch subs   this year they are reluctantly increased to £17 and are due to be paid to the treasurer now if not already paid. Please send any cheques, made out to REA Bournemouth, to the above address for John Cusack. Thank you to those who have already paid, but there are still many members who have NOT paid their subs. We now have internet banking so anybody wishing to pay on line just ring John or email him and he will give the details.  

Birthdays of Note - this month Happy Birthday wishes go to Larry Adams who will be 80 on 23^rd July, Maurice Pearson who will be 70 on 29^th July and Aidan Byrne who will be 75 on 2^nd August.

Welcome to New Members

Adrian Lovell, Terence Wallington, John Millar, and Benjamin Sykes; we hope to see you all soon.

Chairman's message - I hope everyone is as well as can be in these ongoing troubling times. We are slowly starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel but I guess we will have to monitor the Govt Guidelines before we can consider meeting up again. I am thinking that most of us are in the vulnerable section of society, and so we will need to be careful about eventually meeting up 'inside'. I know for me personally, I am not allowed out to play until 1st August but even then will have to practice some serious 'social distancing'. 

I had no takers for the online Zoom meeting last month but I am happy to do another one this month on Wednesday 15th July at 1930hrs. All I need is your email address so that I can invite you and you just load the Zoom application onto your device (computer/laptop/smartphone). I run two of these every week, one for old Army colleagues and one for a few old Police colleagues and they are very successful. In the meantime, stay strong everyone and see you soon.   Bob Perry

Bournemouth Branch REA   --  Memory Lane 2006

January          The Branch received a generous bequest from the will of Albert Hicks.

April               The 2006 Branch A.G.M. was the first to be held at RBL Ferndown.

June                Bert Martin won the SW Group Standard bearers competition at Wyke Regis.

July                 The Branch attended the BBQ at Tidworth on a scorching hot day.

December      A giant redwood is dedicated to the memory of Albert Hicks at the National Memorial Arboretum.

                        The Gurkha restaurant at Sandford has been recc’d and found suitable for our quarterly lunches.

Departed friends      Major MA Napier                 Fred Hughes              Roy Long

                                    Stan Hailstone                      Cyril Baxter 

Britain’s Small Wars – Suez Canal Zone 1951-1954

The Suez crisis of 1956 has often been the focus of post-war political history.  Less well known, certainly among the wider British public, were the years of conflict that preceded it.  It was from those earlier years that the root of the ‘Suez crisis’ was sown in the towns and villages of the Suez Canal Zone in what became known as the ‘Egyptian Emergency’ of 1951-1954.

The Canal Zone was known as the ‘worst posting in the world’ and the British Armed Forces (about a third of whom were RAF personnel) stationed there were mainly conscripts of National Service.  The hostile climate, primitive sanitation, diseases and poor food all combined to make life very unpleasant. Were this not enough, Egyptian terrorists began murderous attacks upon servicemen and their families, army camps, airfields and installations, all of which necessitated in round-the-clock guard and escort duties.  Ambushes, stabbings, abductions and murder became part of the terrorists’ modus operandi.

By the time the Anglo-Egyptian agreement ended the conflict in 1954, the number of post-war casualties accounted for some 1,400 lives.  Successive British Governments always played down this part of history, effectively stifling the claim of Canal Zone veterans for the award of a Campaign Medal to mark that operation.  It took 60 years of campaigning before veterans finally received the Canal Zone Medal.

 

Forecast of National Events 2020.    

Many of these, if not most, will not now take place

12 - 13 September Corps Memorial Weekend*

10 October REA AGM and Annual Dinner *

11 October Sapper Sunday at Royal Hospital Chelsea

05 November Field of Remembrance, Westminster Abbey

08 November Remembrance Sunday