By Derek Chilvers (Suffolk Regiment Cyprus Veteran) ……
Another day has dawned but today is special because it is Sunday 27th November which is the day that the Suffolk Regiment Cyprus Old Boys, family and friends once again held a reunion at the usual venue The Rushbrooke Arms, Sicklesmere, Bury St Edmunds where we are given a warm welcome as usual.
The day started when Ken Truman, who was in the Suffolks in Cyprus with the lads, turned up at my home as he was travelling to the venue with my neighbours Christine and Peter
Peter carried my TV set out to his car and carefully placed it in the back and at 10.25 we all settled into the car and off we went, arriving at the venue at 11.10 where I realised that we now had a TV set and no remote so Peter volunteered to go back to my home to get it and Christine went to keep him company. Ken joined me as I went into the venue where I was greeted by a young lady who after I introduced myself welcomed us with a lovely smile and told us she would be attending to our group for our meals or drinks and led us upstairs to the function room, I have made efforts to find this young lady’s name to thank her for the attention and service she gave everybody because I think she should be commended but to no avail.
Ken and I had a cup of coffee and a chat about old times while we waited for old friends to arrive and arrive they did, I am not sure of the order they arrived in but I could see Noel and Barbara King, Brian and Jackie Stock, Les Andrews and a lady friend and they found themselves a table to sit at, then Brian and Pat Webber arrived accompanied by their friends Tony and June Blake followed by Wally and Wendy Sherwood then Keith Flood and his wife came slowly up the stairs as Keith is still a little unsteady on his legs and somewhere amongst all this movement Peter had arrived back and had got the TV setup so I put one of my holiday DVD’S on the screen for anyone to watch and during all this activity the sweet young waitress was going around getting people’s orders. I was pleased to see Terry Covell arrive – we had a great time in Cyprus this year when we made the journey for the Remembrance Service and spent a lot of time exploring during our 2-week stay.
I was now beginning to relax spending my time going around the room talking to everybody during which time Ted Tatum and Ron Middleditch arrived and I’m sorry to say I then lost count as everyone in the room was now getting their food brought up so I now say sorry to anyone I haven’t mentioned but will try harder at the next reunion which I am hoping to have sometime next April.
We were all pleased to see Rosie who made the long trip from Cannock to represent her partner and our old comrade Chris Veness Black and we made sure there was a tribute to him, he is still very much missed by all of his “mates”.
Mick Burland and Johnny Douglas had now entered the room apologising for being late on parade because Mick’s sat-nav played up and they had an unscheduled trip around the countryside but they were now here which was the important thing and our waitress came up and took their order for food.
Now the food was almost finished, everyone broke up into little groups as usual for a chat about all sorts of things and asked about my holiday pictures so probably for the next hour I sat down with the viewing group and tried as best I could to describe where all the photos had been taken – a ride up the mountain to view St Hilarion Castle and later another drive to view Buffavento Castle from where we enjoyed, owing to the height we were now at, a panoramic view of the Nicosia Plains where you could see the dust rising from the many sites where all the rocks that were mined were turned into all types of building materials. We then went on to the views of Kyrenia and our very tiring climb to the battlements of Kyrenia Castle which with my
We had met up with a couple Derek and Joyce Yeomans at our hotel who when we told them of our ride over the mountains Derek had said that he was stationed up there during his service time so the next day we took them retracing our trip from the previous day and you could see the result of that in the pictures. Terry and I then made a trip to Nicosia and went through the border control into the South Side and walked up Ledra Street and viewed all the work that was being done where Metaxus Square used to be.
Thanks to all of you for turning up and I am now looking forward to the next one.
Editor’s Note:
Thank you Derek for your review of this year’s reunion. I couldn’t help noticing a photo of Fingers the Goat on the Chris Veness table, which I hadn’t seen before and on querying this with you, there was a further one in your archives. Knowing how I love the Fingers’ story, I couldn’t resist showing these here, hope you don’t mind! I’m sure the lads would like to see them.