Wiltshire Branch Report

SOFO

Hugh Babington Smith

Remembrance Day 1989 at the TA Centre, Headington. I said to Bob Pascoe that I would be happy to help with any regimental matter in the county if the task could be woven into my life. Six months later after I thought perhaps my escape was complete, he said that a new museum committee needed a secretary – little work, two meetings a year. My part lasted eleven years, at the end of which it was 3½ days a week employed service as ‘Project Manager.’ At the end of 2012 I was able to retire leaving a part-built museum with a professional museum director, Ursula Corcoran. She’s still there eight years on, so, have you heard of ‘SOFO’ or in full, the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum? Do you know where it is? If you are a Green Jacket, then a part of your regimental history is in that museum. Situated in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, it is in a new, purpose-built building, using modern technology to allow proper preservation of the collections, to enable interesting and exciting exhibitions to be mounted and to enable volunteers and professional staff to provide the service. It is much more than ‘just the regiment.’ To explain, the militaria and the archives of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry used to be in the barracks in Cowley. When the regiment became part of the Royal Green Jackets and the Royal Green Jackets were busily expanding their museum in Winchester which houses the Kings Royal Rifle Corps and Rifle Brigade collections, it was felt that the new regiment should also take on the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry material. However, the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry was different from the others in being a county regiment and so at least part of the collection remained in Oxfordshire housed in a re-roled arms kote in the TA barracks (later Slade Park Barracks, the home of 5 RGJ) in Headington. In the late 1980s it began to be realised that first of all the barracks would at some point revert to Oxford city council; secondly, that the army was increasingly reluctant to devote any assets at all to museums (i.e. ‘get lost, no accommodation, no money’); thirdly, that also in the barracks were the Oxfordshire Hussars and their fabulous uniforms and bits and pieces. In fact, it was when the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry sold a Hussars item at auction that the slightly ridiculous situation pertaining of two ‘related’ organisations ignoring each other became obvious. Colonel Tim May, an enormous and imposing Hussar with a stentorian (that’s deep and loud) voice, found himself thinking aloud during the opening of an exhibition about his regiment with the words: “There is only one solution, we must find a museum.” Well, it is easy to have the aspiration and a committee was formed with representation from the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Trustees and the Oxfordshire Hussars under a neutral chairman. They commissioned a consultant to report on what they thought of as being great potential for a public museum only to hear that military museums are in general not selfsupporting. On this bad news the process of taking stock and making long-term plans started; this was the point at which I was drawn in. To cut an 11-year story short the committee first of all obtained a National Lottery grant to create databases of the archives and objects in the collections. Second, they obtained an agreement with Oxfordshire County Council to lease a building plot within the bounds of the Oxfordshire County Museum in Woodstock. Third and perhaps most important they raised £4 million to build. Lastly, they recruited staff to run the museum and obtained long-term reserves to take it forward. During this time Slade Park Barracks was indeed returned to Oxford, the collections and a growing team of volunteers migrated first to a deserted RAF station then, when that was sold, to an empty office block in Woodstock before the new building became available in 2013. These teams cared for items, researched regimental history, put on exhibitions and developed the flavour of the museum as it is today. The theme of the museum is ‘County and Conflict.’ Yes, the main collections are those of the county regiments but whilst most people have some concept of a county, most have no idea what a regiment is. Whilst the simply curious do visit museums, the trick of a successful museum is to provide ‘hooks’ to grab interest. The wider the scope, the more hooks, the greater the interest and number of visits. With the number of surviving members of both regiments dwindling every year it was obvious that there was no merit in relying on people to know what the (extinct) Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry were or what the 142 (Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars) Vehicle Squadron, 165 Port & Maritime Regiment RLC might mean. It was clearly sensible to allow or encourage other stories to be told, about the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy, the arms and services and civilians. Jump forward 8 years to now, The museum is of course closed to visitors during the current crisis, but if you visit the website: www.sofo.org.uk you will get a flavour of what is there and you will see who is still involved – for instance, the twinkling eyes of the first Commanding Officer of 5 RGJ will beam out of the website at you. And when possible, do visit; all the details are on the website.