125 years recalled by Canty cavalrymen

Press, 2 June 1989, Page 4

125 years recalled by Canty cavalrymen

By

DAVID CLARKSON

With a murmur and a gentle clink of glasses across the tables, they toasted “The Regiment,” 125 years after its formation.

The anniversary luncheon brought 230 former men of the Canterbury Yeomanry Cavalry together for a nostalgic tribute to another era, memories of absent friends, and battlefields far away.

The battle honours on the Guidon, escorted into the function by the men of the New Zealand Scots Regiment, stretch back beyond the World War I battlefields of the Middle East and Gallipoli, to the Boer War of 1899-1902.

There was a special tribute to the oldest of their number, Lieutenant Bill Deans, of Darfield, who was wounded at Gallipoli and lost a leg. He will turn 100 on September 27.

Many of the old soldier bore name tags that identified them as having ridden with the cavalry in the days before World War 11. But for most, their wartime service had been in the Divisional Cavalry, manning Staghound armoured cars, or among the armoured regiments, with Sherman tanks.

There were stories to be swapped of splendid voyages to the war aboard the passenger liner Aqui-

taine, and close calls in the forefront of the fighting in Italy. Mr Colan Grigg, of Mayfield near Ashburton, still carries three pieces of shrapnel in his side, from a German shell that exploded beside his Sherman tank near Rimini. The trooper in the 19th Armoured Regiment was out of the bogged-down tank at the time.

Among the toasts to which the cavalrymen raised their glasses was one for their horses.

On Wednesday, the reunion organisers laid a wreath in the form of the regimental badge, at the Cenotaph in Cathedral Square.