By Margaret Sheard …
I was sad to hear the news from Derek Chilvers that Pat Arbon, one of a group of Suffolk Regiment Cyprus veterans, had died on 7th December and his funeral took place at West Suffolk Crematorium on Wednesday 10th January 2018.
Having met some of the Cyprus veterans of the Suffolk Regiment, some of which come to Cyprus each year for the Remembrance service in Kyrenia, I have on occasions 
written about their reunions in the UK and find it so nice that after all these years since they served together as young men in Cyprus as part of their national service, they still meet up when they can and recapture some of their fond memories in Cyprus in the late 1950’s.
Many of the group are names which crop up from time to time and, although I have never met the people personally, I still feel some sort of bond from the many old photographs I have seen which were supplied by Derek Chilvers, when we wrote a story of his memories together, almost 5 years ago. To see this article click here
Pat Arbon – Rest in Peace
Following is some information supplied by Derek about Pat and the sad event of his funeral.
The funeral went off ok. A massive crowd turned up, there were many of Pat’s friends from the Police Force. During his time in the Police Force he made it to Sergeant and was given 
his own village police station. During this time he was playing football, snooker, darts and fishing and he became a team leader of some sort for his local football team so all in all he was a good all rounder hence all the friends he had made. With his wife Pam he enjoyed ballroom dancing and the exit music played at the funeral was their favourite tune “Snowbird” to which they danced the quickstep.
Pat’s coffin was brought in to the tune Speed the Plough which was the Suffolk Regiment Regimental March recorded by the old Suffolk’s band many moons ago, all very moving stuff.
Our group attending the funeral was myself, Brian Webber, Jim Coe, Brian Stock and Noel King and 
Barbara and we did our best to make a crowd with all of the lads sporting our regimental ties.
The generations of the family lined up to thank everybody for turning out, it was a filthy day with quite heavy rain.
A sad occasion and yet another of our Suffolk Regiment Cyprus comrades has left us.
