Bob Harrow  7^th May 2002 (letter from Bob Harrow to Ron Jackson) 

I have been looking through my old photographs and remembering names which have laid dormant for many years. In a photograph of 12 Corps SR Troops (a combination of four 4-pen sections and Z-troop) taken just before the Group 27 + officers were posted out and before the regiment went south to Iberg (excuse spelling if wrong) I recognized several faces of personalities which may ring a bell with some of Thursdays “gathering”.

 There was Jimmy Doyle, a Baker Troop man; Dickie Wildish who was the star athlete on a regimental sports day held at Hawkhurst in 1943; “tiny” Radford the tallest man in the regiment, who’s operational role became that of an Observer in a 4-pen AP (it was said that that the slit trench had to be dug one foot deeper at one end to accommodate him); and three members of the regimental Dance Band – Alf Grate (piano), Ron Pratt (trumpet) and Frank Lawton (saxophone). Impossible to mention them all – 8 officers and 79 Ors. No,4 Section had disappeared by now as it had been made up by personnel borrowed from other SR Troops just for the final push. There were quite a number of people on leave of course.

 Other familiar faces appear in the enclosed photo This was taken outside the Sgts Mess of 47 Battery, 4^th Survey Regt., at Gelirdon a few miles south of Hanover, after Saturday dinner a few weeks before disbanding. Here one sees a mixture of men from 7^th, 9^th and 10^th with just a few survivors of the 4^th.