Suffolk Regiment in Cyprus Fingers the Goat update

By Margaret Sheard……

Having written previously about the Suffolk Regiment in Cyprus and the story of Fingers the Goat, I was thrilled to receive some more photographs of Fingers which became the Mascot of C Company during the time they served in Cyprus in 1958/59. This is such a lovely story of a baby goat found all alone by some of the lads of C Company on Five Finger Mountain (hence the name) which was smuggled back to camp but eventually discovered when helping itself to the Colonel’s roses.  The Colonel reluctantly agreed for it to be kept as the C Company mascot and it even had a smart  collar courtesy of the Colonel.

I recently heard from Derek Chilvers, who helped us to write his own story of his time in Cyprus, and who works hard to organise reunions for some of the lads from those distant times.  Derek had at last made contact with another of his old comrades – Johnny Sexton (nicknamed “Sexy”) who has provided these new photographs of Fingers the Goat, which I am reproducing below.

I noted with interest that Fingers was also mentioned in Martin Bell’s book The End of Empire.  Martin was also based at Kykko Camp, in a different section, but he was aware of the incident of the Colonel’s roses.  We later got in touch with Martin and he kindly provided us with some information of his own experiences.

The next Reunion of the Suffolk Regiment is currently being arranged by Derek and it will be on Sunday 27^th November at 12 noon at The Rushbrooke Arms, Sicklesmere, Bury St Edmunds, so we look forward to seeing a review of the event in due course.

To see the original Fingers story click here and Derek Chilvers story click here and Martin Bell click here