A British Army Light Infantry Blog site for comments related to anyone with a LI background or LI connection, for as far back as you sensibly feel a living individual or living relatives will reply. The focus however, is centered on the period 1953 – 1957, the service window for many Contributors.
Photo above shows the West Cornwall DCLI Branch Association at a 2007 gathering in Penzance. (Courtesy Neil ‘Swanny’ Swanson). Click to view in separate page.
Additional websites, published by the Editor, Derek Lovemore in Brisbane Australia, that mainly relate to 1DCLI, particularly “A” Company 1954 -1957, but also to other LI Regiments, are shown in the right hand column. Click to open to either view or post a particular blog comment. Click on any selection from the above blog “Titles” to transfer to your respective choice for comment. You can then develop a ‘cross thread’ of comment with others. Additional pages – Bloody Unbelievable, RSM Harold Royffe, Rhyme or Reason, W&W (Entries closed), Afghanistan etc, Nostalgia You Tube and Personal Memoirs, Lewd & Bawdy (jokes that might offend – be warned!) and others – have been added since the original launch in late 2006. Significantly, we have now 100’s pages (over 3,600 logged comments) across all blog pages, with over 50,000 ‘views’ recorded.
An entirely separate Blog Site entitled “Old Blogger Mates Photo Panorama” (hotlinked) has been opened to attract photographic record and comments about our private (non military) lives. Travel with a click to browse and join in!
Comments, with digital photos and captions, including all known details of your ‘target search’ can be edited and placed on our “British Army Most Wanted” website. This ‘mention’ will also assist (maybe) in responses from like-minded individuals. There may also be opportunities for the families of Old Soldiers who have passed on, to publish family military histories, stories and memorabilia (especially old photos with captions) that they wish to share with others and so on. The Editor can restore most old, bent and faded photographs. This facility will hopefully enable other readers and viewers to trigger memory and recognition, and develop cross contact through “Blogging” messages for all to see. Our experience with other LI Guestbook messaging is that reliance on words and vague mention is often insufficient to gain much response. Instead we suggest that pictorial references with detailed description of the image that will be cross linked to Blog pages and other related websites, will interface and form a web of recognition.
L to R: Mark Ware, Bugler DCLI, SCLI. Rex Brain, DCLI SCLI. Terry Joll, DCLI, SCLI, KSLI, LI. Pete Slade, SLI, SCLI, LI. Casino Dinner Newquay June 2008.
ACT NOW!! Do either or both of the following. Post a comment and see what happens. Email the Editor on djkl157@gmail.com and attach any photos with captions and as much information about your Old Soldier that you can find. The more information the better the chances for success. After processing you can view the outcome at British Army LI Most Wanted
Carpe Diem!
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm” Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 responses so far ↓
Derek Lovemore #22935157 // May 11, 2007 at 1:57 am |
Life’s strange ‘ennit?
I read a novel recently from which I quote “Our passage through life is marked by births, weddings and funerals, though when you get to our age the last seems to predominate” (Sleeper by Paul Adam, a fine novel).
We Bermudian DCLI’ians must now all at least be in our early ’70’s – some older of course, being regular soldiers with many years service when 1DCLI shipped out of Liverpool bound for the Caribbean in February 1954. Why then do we defer and ignore reference to the amazing highlights of our lives? Don’t know about many of you – but for me – my Bermuda experience was highly influential in my later life. The DCLI gave me adventure, romance, discipline, orderliness, ritual, challenge, rewards and mateship, the list is endless. Since those days I garnered adventurous experiences from all over the planet. Not that I needed the military to instill a sense of adventure in me.
As I reflect now, some 6 months after orchestrating these Blog pages and related web sites, I am ever more mindful of the apathy that pervades lives that are dulled by the lack of challenge. The brain is an organ that requires exercise, memory is rejuvenating in itself. Why wait until death or infirmity envelops our memories and kills off the desire to record history? You “Old Soldiers” out there with breath left in your body – GOYA! and tell it as YOU remember it – don’t leave the partial quote of your life to Jimmy your grandson – by all means get his expertise on the computer to make it happen – but tell it yourself – NOW.
Carpe Diem!
John Williams // September 6, 2007 at 6:44 pm |
Hi All; This is more of a query than a comment. You may have spotted my memories as regards the old troopships which took many members of Britains Armed Forces around the world in the fifties and early sixties. For most of this I am reliant on my memory which in most cases is fairly reliable. However I have a vague memory of having carried a Light Infantry regiment to Gibraltar sometime during the late fifties. I think it may well have been the DCLI but I can’t be sure. I am sure it was a West Country regiment but as it was some fifty years ago I can’t be 100% certain. Can anyone enlighten me?
Regards John Williams.
PS: Editor 7th Sept 2007
Thanks John. I have a feeling that your memory is accurate. If not 1DCLI then maybe the SCLI. Keith Scudamore, webmaster LI sites will have the answer. May I suggest that you browse the LI Guestbook sites and post a comment there in the interests of all. Keith served in Gibralter in the 1960’s.
Irwin Wills // December 4, 2007 at 2:47 pm |
Hello
Just come across your wonderful memories of the DCLI Intake of 1953. My late brother Tony Wills, passed out at Victoria Barracks in 53?. He was then flown out to Jamaica. Eighteen months later he returned to the U.K and was demobbed in Harrogate.
Tony passed away in January 93. He often reminisced about those wonderful days in Kingston Town. Is there anyone who can remember Tone?
His surviving children would love to know.
ED: Thank You Irwin, I shall email you with the little info that we have on mates in Kingston during that time. Our condolences to you and his family for your loss.
Swanny (Swanson) // May 1, 2008 at 7:59 pm |
Ed, Peter (Joe) Tippett passed away on Sunday Last. Joe as he was known to most that knew him well. Joe was CO’s Bugler in the West Indies and Joined the DCLI in Nov. 1953. His funeral takes place at St.Thomas’ Church, Heamoor, Penzance, Cornwall, at 1400hrs 8th May 2008, There will be DCLI Guard of Honour by the West Cornwall Branch DCLI Assn. Goodbye JOE RIP,
Swanny.
ED: Thanks for emailing me about Joe and posting the information to the blog Swanny and also the LI Message bank. Many will remember Joe and will wish to pay their last respects.