A RELIEF MARCH

Evening Star, Issue 20983, 23 December 1931, Page 11

A RELIEF MARCH

SCOTS GUARDS' JOURNEY We’re marchin’ on. relief ovctf India’s coral strand. Eight ’undred figbtin’ Englishmen* the Colonel and the Band, It wasn’t quite that when tho Second Battalion Scots Guards came, marching into Windsor (writes Collin* son Owen, in the ‘ Daily Mail ’). Thera was none of the dust and heat of tho Grand Trunk road in their twenty-miles march from Aldershot. But at _ any rate they were marching on relief—*. tho relief of the British taxpayer. England perhaps did not arise to . the occasion as some more emotional countries would have done. With a little more imagination we might have made a real triumphal march of it. Not exactly the march of the Marseillais on Paris. Indeed, the very reverse of it. But at any rate how much “ The Army of to-day’s all right” is shown by this gesture. In its way it is a definite lead to the country. The men might have come effortlessly by train,, and instead they foot-slogged it for twenty miles. It is the sort of idea that starts a movement, and for all we know this one will. . * I came across the battalion lying by, the roadside in Windsor Great Park just after 4 oclock. They were halting for a quarter of an hour before marching out of the park into Windsor to the skirl of the pipes. A score or so of motor cars were halted near the recumbent battalion.. The groups of people who had alighted from the cars seemed very shy of the soldiery. The soldiery seemed very shy. of the people. All very British. Perhaps the soldiers felt that -the weight of a great economy idea lay upon them,and were ready to blush at finding themselves famous for being something else than Guardsmen. . I had a short chat with Lieut.-colonel E. C. T. Warner, tho commanding officer. ’ It had been a very pleasant march, he said, in perfect weather for the job. Thev started at 8, and tho populace, had greeted them cordially all along the route. They had marched with the drums and fifes ahead and the pipes in the middle of the battalion, so that they had had music all the way. X asked Lieut .-colonel Warner, how the idea had originated. He was diplomatic in his answer. He said it had in X way just grown. Somebody had ihentioned it as an idea, and it htd been talked over and so decided on. Whistles blew and the battalion formed up and started off again on the last stretch into Windsor. The men all looked thoroughly fresh. The twenty miles through England’s, countryside did not try them in the slightest. As for the entry into Windsor, it was devoid of all fuss. A couple of white-gloved policemen headed them, at the park gate, and that was all the official concession to the occasion. I had'hoped they would march past tho castle, and with the skirl of the pipes wake the old royal_ borough up to the new economic policy of effort' , in place of ease. But instead they, came through minor streets to the back gates of the barracks, and turned into them without more ado. But Windsor turned out generously in tho streets to greet them. There were many remarks m the crowd on tho significance of the occasion. For all wo know as yet, th® inarch of the Scots Guards has lighted an important caudle in English history*