Meetings are held on the Second Wednesday of eachmonth at 7.30 pm in the Function Room at the

Conservative Club, Fairfield Road, Market Harborough.The Committee meets in the same room on the

Thursday preceding the Branch Meeting at 7.00 pm.

The Social & Fund-Raising Team Reports

Market Harborough Branch

TheRoyal

BritishLegion

In TouchIssue 119 August 2008

In Touchwww.in-touch.ukvet.net

THE MONTHLY

BRANCH OF THE

Founded 1996Editor:

George Seward01858 433873

18 Charles Street,Market Harborough,

LE16 9ABg.seward@uwclub.net

No part of In Touch may bereproduced without the

permission of the Committee

The Royal British LegionMarket Harborough Branch

Reg. Charity 219279

The date of the next Branch meeting is

September 10th30 Sep Lunch at the Angel, noon for 12.30 9 Oct Informal Autumn Dinner, MH Golf Club18 Oct Coffee Morning Harboro Theatre 9am-Noon28 Oct Lunch at the Angel, noon for 12.30 1 Nov Festival of Remembrance, de Montfort Hall, Leic.15 Nov Remembrance Concert, Baptist Church MH25 Nov Lunch at the Angel, noon for 12.3013 Mar 09 Formal Branch Dinner

Hon. Secretary:Sara Whitley-Kinzett 01858 434476

Welfare:Vida Edwards 0116 279 3729Betty Ramsay 01858 434923Poppy Appeal Organiser:

Caroline Windsor 01858 463660Social & Fund Raising Team:

Glenys Hocking-Davies 01858 467835Wendy Osborne 01858 467636

Les Moore 01858 463112Freda Carnell 077 422 987 68

Autumn Dinner A reservation form for the informaldinner on 9 October is enclosed with this newsletter.The Golf Club serve excellent meals and this occasion isalways enjoyable. If you haven’t attended one of theseoccasions before, come along and join the party.An Interesting Speaker Alan Hartley, the author ofthe article on page six, will give a talk at the 10 Septembermeeting entitled ‘Airborne Operations from the Erk’sPoint of View’. Alan speaks as well as he writes, so thispromises to be an entertaining evening.Future Arrangements A series of votes werepassed unanimously at the August meeting and thefollowing arrangements were agreed. The ChristmasLuncheon is to be held in January, and the RNA andRAFA will be invited, the monthly luncheons will bemoved to the first Tuesday in the month to allowRAFA Members to attend, the monthly luncheons tobe moved forward for the Bank Holidays, all lunch-eons to be held in Market Harborough.Coffee Morning Les Moore will be grateful forhelp on 18 October, including setting up (from 8am),clearing up and serving on the sales stalls. As always,bric-a-brac, tombola and raffle prizes are needed andwill be welcomed at the next Branch meeting. Yourintentions to supply cakes, etc., will be useful.

Poppy Appeal OrganiserDavid Pryor has agreed tobecome the new Poppy Ap-peal Organiser and was wel-comed by Members. Davidhoped that he would be “upto scratch” after consulta-tion with Caroline Windsor,

who will be moving from this area. David attendsthe ceremony at the Menin Gate each year to lay awreath on behalf of the RBL. Caroline hopesMembers consider signing up to help the AppealTeam and names will be taken at the next Meeting.Membership And still they come! Branch mem-bership now stands at 153.Cottage Hospital Memorial Tom Jeacockre-iterated previous concerns about the portico ofthe Cottage Hospital and requested that it is anitem for the agenda in the near future. He ex-plained that the Cottage Hospital had been built bypublic subscription from local residents and that ithad been built on hallowed ground as a memorialand he was concerned that the present Councilwere not aware of that fact. Unlike the Gas BoardBuilding in St Mary’s Road, the Cottage Hospitalportico should be registered as a listed building siteto preserve the objectives of the hospital as amemorial to the fallen of the First World War. TheRBL had been in contact with the previous NHSTrust but had not brought the matter to the atten-tion of the present Trust and this is to be remediedurgently. Marjorie Adcock urged the RBL to takeaction to have the portico, at least, listed.Members visit Orkneys Branch Joan and TomAshmore visited the RBL Branch at Kirkwall, Ork-ney Islands in Scotland and were kindly presentedwith a Branch pennant and a copy of the ScottishLegion News.  They were delighted with the warmreception they received and enjoyed chatting withMembers.

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he would sit on the crossbar, paws on the handlebars.Once at the dispersal, Billy was very jealous of histerritory and occasionally big Alsatian police dogswould enter our dispersal but Billy, despite being halftheir size, would bar their way - fighting them whennecessary. His souvenirs of these confrontations werea deeply scarred nose andhalf of one ear missing buteventually the police dogsstopped encroaching.

When the NAAFI teawagon arrived at the disper-sal and there was a dash toget in the queue and woebetide anyone who tried topass Billy as he would snapyour ankles. There was noreal pain because after fetch-ing pebbles for years (hisfavourite pastime) he had noteeth, having worn them alldown!

After the van had left you could go into the dispersalhut where everyone was seated having their char and awad (tea and cake) and invariably Billy would be sittingwith a piece of cake on top of his head and between hisears. He would be absolutely unmoving until someonesaid “Right, Billy” and then with an upward snap thecake would be caught and down it would go. But neveruntil he received the word and sometimes, to be cruel,they would leave him for 2-3 minutes.

For a short period we had to go on detachment toa nearby airfield, Blake Hill Farm, which was about fivemiles away. They put Billy on the lorry and he camewith us to Blake Hill. Next day Billy was missing andcould not be found. Phil Niven had to go back to DownAmpney to fetch some bedding and there was Billy - hedidn’t like Blake Hill Farm!

Very often Billy would go flying in our Dakotas andhis tail always wagged as he went up the aircraft steps.One day he went to Brussels with one of our mechan-ics, Newton Foster. When Foster came back he had a

long face and told us that Billy was lost. He must havewandered off the Evere-Brussels airfield for he wasn’tto be found when they took off for the return flight.However, ten days later trotting across the aprontowards a 271 Dakota was Billy, pristine white and witha huge pink ribbon bow round his neck. Where he had

been no-one ever knew butBilly had a self-satisfied smirkon his face for days but soonregained his normal colour.

Talking of colour remind-ed me that 36 hours beforeD Day we received an orderto paint all of our 60 Dako-tas and gliders with blackand white stripes to identifyAllied aircraft for the benefitof the trigger happy Navyand huge barrels of black andwhite distemper and white-wash brushes were placed ateach dispersal. Everyone had

to assist - cooks, mechanics, aircrew, clerks - were allroped in to paint these three black and white bands onthe wings and fuselage. There was an air of excitementfor we all knew that the day we had all trained so hardfor over five months - D Day - had arrived and we weregoing to take the war into Europe.

Billy, carried away by this infectious excitement,barked his head off incessantly near to where theairmen were busy painting. To shut him up, someonewould hit him with a white brush and off he would go,still barking, until someone would hit him with a blackbrush. So poor old Billy went from black to white andreverse, many times over the next 36 hours.

When the war ended and we left Down Ampney.Phil Niven took Billy home to London but he pined andwould not eat. He would also attack civilians being usedto RAF uniforms. Eventually Phil motored back toDown Ampney where two Canadian squadrons hadmoved in and left him there, where he ended his days.

Always a welcome sight. A preserved NAAFI tea wagon.A picture that will surely stir a few memories!

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Mr Sewart introduced himself as a Leicester-shire lad from Birstall and thanked the RBL for

the opportunity to come and talk with them abouthis role in Market Harborough. The post of TownDevelopment Officer is funded by the HarboroughDistrict Council and is part of the HarboroughImprovement Team whose function is to facilitatethe different groups in the town in their aims todevelop the town. He hoped to be able to talk again to the RBLwith more specific plans for the development of anyprojects that they might decide upon in the future.The groups represent both the voluntary and busi-ness sectors of the community and part of his job isto indicate areas of possible funding to support thegroup’s projects and to listen to the needs of theretailers. The recent successful Egyptian Sand Playtimewas an example of raising the profile of MarketHarborough in the surrounding area, includingNorthamptonshire, by putting on an event on atraditionally quiet day for retailers. The retailershad been impressed that the trail of scarabs linkingthe independent shops in the town had in factincreased their takings on a Wednesday. Spotinterviews amongst visitors/shoppers in the towncentre had indicated that advertising this event inthe wider area had attracted a good number ofvisitors who had never visited Market Harboroughbefore and would return as they had enjoyed theirvisit and the range of shops. He felt that his role was to “cherish, protect andsupport local businesses and to re-energise volun-tary groups as the people who get involved are thelifeblood of this jewel in the crown of market townsin Leicestershire”.

In 1940, 271 squadron was created in a transport rolefrom the former 1680 Flight. Equipment mostlyconsisted of the Handley Page HP54 Harrow, supple-mented with the Bristol Bombay and civil airlinersimpressed into military service, including the HandleyPage H.P.42s from Imperial Airways.

In 1940 our HP 54 Harrows from 271 Squadron basedat Doncaster were helping to evacuate RAF airfields

in France as the Germans advanced.As our ground mechanics who flew with the Har-

rows as loaders at that time, went to a loaded Harrowprior to take off from the now abandoned airfield theysaw a small black and white smooth haired terrier pup,no more than a few weeks old which had also beenabandoned. One of the mechanics, strictly against or-ders, popped the pup into his battledress blouse, beforeboarding the-Harrow. At Doncaster as it grew into afull sized dog, Billy was a firm favourite and the airmenwould take him up Ellers Road to Doncaster for anevening on the bus. Being exceptionally intelligent Billysoon learned to go by himself and he would walk up tothe bus stop and the bus drivers would always pick himup. Once in Doncaster he would do the rounds of thelocal pubs looking for an airman or a friendly face togive him a saucer of beer. Then it was back on the busto Ellers Road. One day the bus failed to stop and Billyleaped off, roIling in the road, shook himself and trotted

off back to camp.The local people had great amusement watching

Billy heading up the fortnightly pay parade. Billy was atthe head of the column, sat by the pay table but neveractually got paid.

When we converted to Dakotas from Harrows weleft Doncaster and flew to Down Ampney nearCirencester where Phil Niven, a 271 Squadron Flightmechanic, took Billy to our ‘B’ Flight Nissen hut Oneday when we hadn’t been at Down Ampney. very longPhil gave me a demonstration of how intelligent Billywas. Billy was lying in his favourite position by the cokestove which stood in the centre of the Nissen hut. Billywas filthy because the airfield wasn’t really finishedbeing built and there was a lot of mud. Billy was fastasleep when Phil picked up the fire bucket, rattled thehandle and said “Bath, Billy”. Billy woke, whined andnearly stood up, his legs very wobbly —the picture ofbeing “proper poorly”. He staggered up the aisle be-tween the beds and I was filled with pity for this poorpathetic creature. Billy got to the top end of the billet

near the window which was open and then with a quickathletic bound he was up, through the window andaway, not to be seen for the rest of the day!

He would go down to the airmen’s mess for dinnerand if he did not care for the smell of the menu hewould try the Sergeants Mess and if that was not to hisliking, the Officers Mess. He always got fed.

He never walked to our dispersal because on theperimeter track which circled our airfield, anyone pass-ing on a bike would say “Come on, Billy”. With a bound

By Alan Hartley

The Handley Page HP54 Harrow

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Frank Dicker FulfordAdapted from the funeral address by Rev Brian Lewis

It is good to celebrate the life of someone who haslived so long and so well as Dick Fulford, a lovely,

charming man, a real gentleman and a delight to bewith. It is good, too, that he was able to stay inHarborough to the end, to be looked after so well atSt Luke’s, and be able to enjoy his last weeks, retainingboth his dignity and sense of being loved.

Dick was born in 1917 at Bishopstone, near Salis-bury, where his father was a carpenter and his mothera schoolmistress. After primary school Dick went tothe Bishop Wordsworth School in Salisbury beforejoining the Wessex Electricity Company in 1935 as asurveyor. He met Renie, a secretary with the firm, andafter becoming engaged on her 21st birthday, theymarried in 1943.

Dick had volunteered to join the Royal Navy aswar began and served as a Chief Petty Officer on HMSAnson and HMS Kent protecting Russian convoys, aswell as on shore duty in Plymouth.

After he was demobbed, he and Renie moved backto Wiltshire, where Dick continued to work for what

had become the Southern Electricity Board, until heretired in 1981. They moved to Market Harboroughin 1985 to be near their family and really settled intotheir new life together.

They had many interests and both worked formany years as volunteers in the local Cancer Charityshop as well as being very active in the Royal NavalAssociation and the Royal British Legion, especiallybeing very much involved for many years with thePoppy Appeal. In addition, Dick became a Vice Presi-dent of the Harborough Band.

With holidays in France several times a year andcontinued involvement in the lives of their childrenand families, Dick and Renie enjoyed a full and satisfy-ing life with 61 years of very happy marriage.

Sadly Renie died in November 2004, but Dickmanaged to carry on, helped by having daughter Mar-ion living close by.

Marion, a Member of the Branch adds this message."Roger, John and I would like to thank all Mum and

Dad's friends in the RBL for their support, especially duringthe last four years.

After 67 years together, Dad found life difficult withoutMum, but his ex-service comrades were a lifeline to him.He continued to have his own social life, enjoying thelunches, outings and meetings.

Our thanks to you all"

Dick as so many of us will like to remember him - smilingwith a glass of wine in his hand..

With his eldest son Roger, Dick is pictured on his 91stbirthday in May, seven weeks before he died.

This group of young Wrens under training in Octo-ber 1956 includes, third from the left, Pat Middle-

ton. The girls are standing in front of a HuntingPercival Sea Prince of 750 Naval Air Squadron at theRoyal Naval Air Station Culdrose in Cornwall. Pat writes, “We were at the end of several monthsof a Communications Course and the object here wasfor us to experience the voice communications fromthe pilot’s viewpoint in an aircraft during flight.

We are all kitted up with parachutes, life jacketsand sick bags - you can see mine tucked into the frontof my life jacket. I don’t remember receiving anyinstructions on the use of the parachute except thatthe pilot said ‘Well girls - if I shout JUMP you mustjump straight away, if you hear it a second time it isonly an echo!’. We all thought that was hilarious - not realisingthen it is the oldest flying joke in the book. We wereall just eighteen and raring to go!”

Members are invited to send theEditor anecdotes and photographs for

reproduction in In Touch.