The Royal Green Jackets Regimental Associa on
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The lamps started to swing and the sandbags were re-filled and Keith ‘Dog’ Hudson started to sell The North East Branch calendar for 2014 and a very good job he has made of them as well as other RGJ regalia. Friday evening passed all too quickly but that just meant that Saturday had arrived and our long awaited function could commence and what better way to start the night off than with the Bugle section from The Durham Army Cadet Force (Rifles really) playing a selection of Bugle calls which brought back so many memories and making the hairs stand up on the back of our necks. Once the Buglers, under the skilful and amusing direction of WO2 Derek Corbett, had concluded their spot Jake thanked them on our behalf and released them to return to their other duties at the nearby Seaburn Centre. Jake then invited our Branch President Brigadier Nicholas Prideaux to speak. He welcomed everyone, reflected on the Branch’s activities and achievements during the past year and thanked everyone who had organised the evening which was always greatly appreciated
by so many people especially our Branch members, their guests and those from other Branches. After the formal introductions and presentations had been concluded, we were entertained by a very good local group called Triple Vision and they started the evening’s merriment with many a good E-Zine 2013
tune of our era. The auction raised a total of £740 which was donated to our own Rifles “Care4Casualties” charity. George Barrs and John Toolin are seen below onducting the auction. Also shown below are two tables full of Raffle prizes, these were kindly donated by our members throughout the year and thereby ensuring that an enormous number of tickets were sold. The evening was a huge success and all our guests enjoyed themselves and spoke highly of the food and entertainment. As the night drew to a close, we went our various ways to prepare for the most important part of the weekend, the Sunday morning Parade in Sunderland to honour our fallen comrades. On a beautiful sunny but cold Sunday morning, we started to meet up in our usual place, William Jameson’s bar and after having had a hearty breakfast, we made our way up to the Civic Centre, where the parade forms up. We fell in in three ranks to the command of our resident CSM from the Coldstream Guards; he received the usual light-hearted banter of bleating
sheep and other jokes which he took all in the spirit of fun. The hardest part of the march was trying to keep step to the heavy brigade drum beat but we arrived without incident directly opposite the War (To be con nued on next page) Volume 5 Issue 3 | 15
