The Regiment
My regiment was marvellous,
the Twenty-Third was fine,
with battle-honours piled up high
since Sixteen-Ninety-Five.
We’d performed in many a ‘party’
from the Boyne to Waterloo,
the Crimea and the Boer War
and World Wars One and Two.
Then ‘commies’ in Malaya,
in Cyprus, ‘terrorists’
(and we’ve ‘rescued Wales’
– Cau dy ben! – since then
when sent to do our bit).
We had a regimental goat
to represent our land –
(though, the goat was from the ‘Royal‘ herd,
so not a native son).
Attachment to that loyal herd,
no doubt, appealed to some,
and our ossifers – crachachified –
were of Anglophilic brand.
Their returned salutes were languorous,
as though they didn’t care;
but jawch, they weren’t as bad as that,
so let’s just leave it there.
At our school they were the masters;
And the prefects? Sergeants bold,
who marched us up and down the square –
and none could be excused.
(The worst was Sergeant Williams
of the catastrophic yell,
and parentage so dubious –
we hated him like hell).
We ‘sloped’ our arms and ‘ordered’ them
to the drumbeat on parade,
and if we moved a fraction late
the corporals took our names.
And then you’d be on a fizzer
what’s called a two-five-two,
‘cos QRs and the MML
don’t like the look of you;
p’raps do a spell of jankers,
be escorted by RPs,
and moved around like Mother Brown
with a ‘Bend them bluddy knees!’
We learned to burnish brasses
till they sparkled like the sun,
and blanco belts and gaiters,
and when all that was done
we’d get them filthied-up again
when made to crawl through gunge.
It made no sense at all to me
and made no sense to others,
but it made fine sense to the up-aboves
who play at silly buggers.
Annoying what they named us, too:
‘cos Welsh, not ‘Welch’ we was
(an antiquated antic,
that Seventeenth-century tab).
But …’Dismiss, injurious banter!’
‘Fall out, this kind of spoof!’
I’m not poking fun at anyone, mun,
and I’ll furnish you with proof:
Aye!
Tadcu fought with the Twenty-Third;
my uncles with the Borderers;
my dad fought with the Forty-first;
I fought with the Fusiliers.
In fact no-one in our family
ever got on with the blydi army at all 😦
(From ‘Memories, Moods, Refections’ )
Notes:
The Twenty-third: The British army’s 23rd regiment of foot – the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, formed in 1689.
Cau dy ben! : Welsh of the south – literally ‘Shut your head’ (in the northern dialect, Cau dy gêg / ‘Shut your mouth’) and in the poem’s context used, as it often was in my part of Wales, as a mild and jocular reproof, as compared to ‘Get away with you1’, or ‘Don’t tell such fibs!’, the implication being ‘Who’s attacking Wales, then?’ (Malaya and Cyprus being, of course, more than a bit too far away to suppose any legitimate threat to this little entity).
We had a regimental goat: Mountain goats have traditionally served as mascots for all Welsh regiments of the line. The mascot of the RWF is selected from the ‘Royal Herd’, goats originally gifted to England’s royal family by an Asian potentate, if I remember correctly. When I was with the 1st Battalion a forthright offer of a new mascot of the most impeccable Welsh pedigree was made to the regiment by a northern farmer, but our colonel was, because of the royal connection, obliged to turn it down. (This small matter will not be recorded anywhere accessible, now: I only know of it as at the time, as an Orderly Room corporal I was responsible for dealing with much of the CO’s official correspondence and handled both letters. I thought it a nice offer and imagined it would have been accepted, but up to the moment the offer was declined was unaware of our goat’s royal prerogative). There are some very amusing stories about these regimental goats, all of them given an army rank and a daily ration of cigarettes to eat – how they were promoted, demoted, charged under military law for misbehaviour on parade (such as butting inspecting notables who ventured too close), and so on. The goat was in charge of the ‘goat-major’, usually a young lance-corporal. During my time the goat-major was a ginger-haired Valley youngster on his 2-year compulsory service stint; he was placed on Company Commander’s orders for confiscating the goat’s cigarette ration (at the time 5 of the popular Wild Woodbine brand commonly known as ‘Woodies’) with the absurd notion of smoking them.
ossifers – crachachified: ’ossifers’ is a humorous, class-orientated and misspelled metathesis of ‘officers’; ’crachach-ified’, equally class-orientated, means ‘gentrified’, Welsh crachach having the meaning of ‘hoity-toity’, stuck-up, snobbish … but waré têg nawr, fair play to them. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, though, static life in the regimental depot was such – conceptually, to say the least, thus stratified.
jawch: Also spelt juwch. A popular expression of surprise – seemingly a derivation/corruption of diawl / ‘the devil’ (‘Oh, Heck!’) or in the case of juwch, possibly (‘Oh, Gawd!’). But I might be wrong.
Marching up and down the square: Marching up and down the square was a favourite hobby of the bellowing, overbearing drill-sergeant. Under his wing the conscript would learn how to do many useful things – how to stand at ease, stand easy, stand to attention, left turn, right turn, about turn, quick march, slow march, march at the double, march in open order, march in close order, one step forward march, one step backward march, advance in review order, mark time, left wheel, right wheel, eyes left, eyes right, halt, slope arms, order arms, port arms, present arms, reverse arms, ground arms, fix bayonets, unfix bayonets … I’ve probably left a few out. Anyway, many vital things. There are a couple of very funny film skits about Brit drill-sergeants available online: An hilarious one is by Michael Palin of the Monty Python team – try tapping ‘funny drill sergeant’; another is from the unforgettable ‘Dad’s Army’ series, appearing at around 17-21 minutes of the episode ‘Room at the Bottom’. Then there’s the Danny Kaye sketch ‘British Intelligence’ (not especially about drill-sergeants, but taking the rise wonderfully out of the robotic and ridiculously emphasized body movements – the ‘long way up, short way down’ quivering salutes, etc., – of rankers and NCOs). All three guaranteed good for a laugh.
fizzer, two-five-two, QRs. MML, jankers, RPs, MotherBrown: Should a soldier be seen to have committed a wrongdoing, he would be said to be ‘on a fizzer’ (i.e., stand accused) and be placed, in the case of a fairly minor offence, on a charge-report or ‘two-five-two’ (i.e., AF [Army Form] 252), after which he would appear before his Company Commander and be tried according to army regulations (i.e., QRs [Queen’s Regulations] and the MML [Manual of Military Law]), two weighty red-covered tomes which covered everything and was on the 252 couched in the nicest phraseology, e.g., ‘…in that he, at such and such a time, on such and such a date, did, contrary to good order and military discipline…’ If the case was not dismissed, the sentence would normally be a period of some days on kitchen fatigues, extra guard-duty, or perhaps CB [confined to barracks] ). Concerning confinement, for a more serious offence the case would be referred to the CO as Battalion Commander and the sentence might be ‘jankers’.
Now that’s an interesting word, and one which has been interpreted in different ways depending on place and time. During my early ‘career’ with the regiment it was always associated with close confinement or ‘durance vile’ as they’d have said in earlier times – i.e., jail. Although the most mundane and recent origins have been attributed to the term ‘jankers’, I cling to my favourite and much less investigated derivations, one musical, the other fantastic. The first, the musical, is that the word is onomatopoeic, having the jangle and clink (clink! 🙂 ) of shackles and chains. The second, the fantastic, is that it possibly has an ancestry stretching back some two-thousand years to the time when legionary auxiliaries from several regions of the Roman Empire were posted to the British Provinces. There are in Latin a number of words for ‘prison’ the most common being carcer (from whence Welsh carcar ). Of less frequent use is janiculum, which might indicate a military prison (the Janiculum in Rome certainly served famously as such in later times). It’s fascinating to speculate that as a slang term for punishment, janiculum could have survived, as ‘jankers’, from the linguistic repertoire of serving Romano-British soldiers!
If you were unfortunate enough to become a military jailbird, you would be marched everywhere under the eye of an RP (Regimental Policeman), and it could be in a rapid ‘hup! hup! hup! hup! leg exercise. ‘Knees up Mother Brown’ is a boisterous, leg-kicking song originating, probably in the 1800s, in London’s East end pubs. It saw a popular revival during the 1930s/‘40s WWII years.
blanco belts and gaiters: ‘Blanco’ – a white or light coloured waxy substance which came in little round tins like boot-polish tins; the same stuff as used to whiten daps/pumps/gymshoes. The word is of course associated with the Spanish of the same name. The blanco used in the 23rd was, for fatigues or battledress, of a light green, but for No.1 (parade) dress it was white. Gaiters … well, I don’t think they’re the height of fashion any more. They were tough canvas articles about 10 inches long and 5 high each with two straps and buckles which, stiffened with a coat of blanco, could be wrapped about the ankles, the top half covering the trouser-bottoms and the lower half covering the boots. Higher boots would have done a better job, and the saying was that the only reason for the existence of gaiters was so that they could be blancoed. It was important that the conscript be kept busy.
gunge: A gooey mess – mud, in this case, and to be crawled through on one’s belly while negotiating the rigours of an obstacle course, on a route-march, or out on a planned exercise. It’s used in the ‘foot in the waste paper bin’ sequence of the Danny Kaye clip mentioned above, but appears in the captions as ‘gum’.
Welsh, not ‘Welch’ : The 17th-century English orthography – the alien-looking ‘Welch’ continued to be used for a very long time. It was still in use during my time with the regiment, but has also, so I understand, been replaced by the normal, and to many more acceptable,‘Welsh’. Among some, the traditional quaintness of the 17th century version is no doubt still favoured.
mun: A form of address commonly used in various parts of Wales. It’s close to the usual English ‘man’, I suppose – except that it has a quite different and distinct measure of cameraderie, a more warm and friendly feel to it. Yes, there’s a big difference. They’re nothing like the same. More friendly. In fact, where I come from – Llanelli – if you were to venture to say that these two are no different and just the same and what are you talking about, and it happened to be a Saturday night and if it happened that the Scarlets happened not to have won, you might get knocked down. 🙂
Tadcu, the Borderers, the Forty-first: Welsh tadcu = ‘grandfather. The Borderers are the 24th regiment of foot, the South Wales Borderers, formed in the same year as the 23rd and famous for their action at Rorke’s Drift, South Africa, which featured in the 1964 blockbuster film Zulu. The Forty-first are the Welch / Welsh Regiment (although not formed until much later, the matter of an archaic spelling is, peculiarly, the same). All three regiments are now amalgamated into a single regiment of armoured infantry known as the Royal Welsh (and they finally got the spelling right).
© 2024 Dafydd Hughes Lewis. All rights reserved. 