Just A Walk In The Sun with the Hereford Regiment Museum

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In this month's episode, Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts take a "deep dive" into a scarce and unusual award for the First World War made only to Territorial soldiers 1914-1919.  They investigate the origins and exacting criteria for this WW1 campaign service medal, common misconceptions and the many anomalies caused by it, along with the character of the men and women who were awarded it.  

A fascinating insight into policy of deploying Territorial troops to garrison the British Empire and the willingness of part time soldiers and nurses from He...

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In this month's delayed episode, Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts take a walk out to Hoarwithy, between Hereford and Ross-on-Wye on the banks of the river Wye.  The impressive Byzantine / Romanesque / Tuscan beauty of St Catherine's Church catches their eye and they explore then local men commemorated on the War Memorial there.

The great great uncle of regular listener Steve Parkes was one on those commemorated here.  George Edwards of the Herefordshire Regiment is buried in St Catherine's Churchyard and in 2018 a service was held to rededicate his repaired he...

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Join us this month as we chat with Preb Jane Davies, a Fownhope-born retired vicar who has unearthed the First World War stories of two great-uncles.  Harry and Leonard Whittaker were sons of a Woolhope gamekeeper.  Leonard emigrated to Australia just before the war and Harry joined the Herefordshire Regiment in September 1914.  Both served overseas, Harry tragically dying of wounds at Gallipoli aged only 19.

Jane, Andy and Paul reflect on the conditions at Gallipoli, the impacts of losses on Herefordshire families and social relationships in village life.  Leonard's Australian service papers are...

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Join us this month as Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts explore an exciting new resource for the military and family historian: the Second World War Campaign Medal Cards.  Containing valuable information including names, addresses, regimental numbers and details of units, these cards also confirm what WW2 medals the serviceman was issued with in recognition of service across the world during the conflict.  They were available after the war and up until the 1990s at post offices for ex-servicemen to use.

Paul and Andy, using a number of Herefordshire men as...

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In this episode Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts look back over the events of Remembrance 2024, including wreaths being taken down on the GWR's Poppy Train service to London Paddington on 11th November.  Andy was accompanied by museum assistant curator, Danny Rees and cadets of 124 (City of Hereford) Squadron, RAF Cadets.  

On the same day, Paul helped lead the remembrance service at Hereford Academy with 600 pupils and cadets of the newly formed Combined Cadet Force detachment at the school.

Andy and Paul reflect on the role of remembrance to...

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Join us this month at a recent meeting of the newly inaugurated Hereford Militaria Club - an opportunity for military researchers, collectors, military vehicle owners and family historians to meet over a meal and share no end of fascinating stories.  This lively bunch met at the Godwins Pub in the Herefordshire village of Bartestree - once the headquarters of the famous Godwins encaustic tile manufacturers. 

We hear a tantalising snippet of Mick Atkinson's talk, showing Napoleon's personal Legion d'Honneur, worn in many famous battles and later in captivity. 

We als...

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This month, Rev Paul Roberts joins the crew of the Sutton Voices HR1 Podcast, a community podcast from the Herefordshire village of Sutton St Nicholas.  Keith Lawton and Mike Winnell have recorded 33 episodes, winkling out the fascinating stories of local residents and cheering up the community in the face of relentless bad national and international news. 

Paul, Mike and Keith compare notes on podcasting and talk about the research work undertaken by Sutton Voices on men on the local war memorial and the men remembered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in...

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This month Rev Paul Roberts chats with Ledbury-born military researcher, Alyn Tanner. 

Alyn, who runs the Herefordshire Regiment Research Group, talks about how he became interested in the Herefordshire Regiment and shares several individuals he has researched, including Pte Tommy Fletcher, one of the "'intrepid three" who returned to Gallipoli in 1965 for the 50th Anniversary.  More information on these three veterans can be found in a short talk on our Youtube Channel. 

As someone who emigrated to the United States, Alyn also shows the medals of Pte Andrew Harton who...

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A brief look forward to what will be coming in the second series of podcast episodes from the Herefordshire Light Infantry Museum, including chats with Aly Tanner, regimental researcher and founder of the Herefordshire Regiment Research Group on Facebook, Prebendary Jane Davies, and walks to explore the Cawley brothers of Berrington Hall and elite pathfinder, Wing Commander Tony Davies DSO DFC from Munsley.

Also details of our Museum Open Day on 7th September 2024 10.30am - 3.30pm at Suvla Barracks, Harold Street, Hereford.

For more information about the Operation Blackout...

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This month on the 80th Anniversary of D-Day, the largest amphibious invasion ever mounted, Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts reflect on the role the Herefordshire Light Infantry played in the days after 6th June 1944, including the Regiment's first casualties, among the Carrier Platoon, over the river Odon bridgehead.  They examine the role of the Regiment as part of the 11th Armoured Division, an example of an all-arms force, the extensive training undertaken ahead of the battle and the part the Regiment played in the approach to Hill 112, so important in the b...

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The final part of Douglas Pike’s diary, runs through September 1915 until his evacuation from the Gallipoli Peninsula, suffering from dysentery.  He includes fascinating details of everyday life in front line trenches, attacks by Turkish forces and ways in which he acted as a guide to relieving battalions, including the Buffs.  Finally, he reflects on the campaign from a hospital camp and marvels at the successful withdrawal, while also recognising that the campaign was “for nothing.” 

Douglas Pike was mentioned in dispatches for his actions at Gallipoli in the early phases of the He...

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This third extract of Douglas Pike’s Gallipoli Diary finds him caring for Pte Yates, a wounded comrade through the night of 13th/14th August 1915, awaiting promised stretcher bearers, which never came.  On reaching Lala Baba the next morning RSM Chipp tells him he has missed the battalion and in the evening he sets out for Chocolate Hill to find them.  We then hear of conditions in the front line and how Douglas volunteers for a listening post.

We featured excerpts of Pte  Pike’s diary in a podcast episode a little...

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This second part of Douglas Pike’s Gallipoli Diary picks up on the morning of 10th August 1915.  Douglas meets up with ‘A’ Company and they spend the day fighting alongside the South Wales Borderers; he is sent back to the beach for rations, and on his return finds his unit has moved.  After searching his is finally reunited with the Herefords and he is asked to accompany a wounded man back to the dressing station.

We featured excerpts of Pte  Pike’s diary in a podcast episode a little while back, looking at...

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We featured excerpts of Pte Douglas Pike’s diary in a podcast episode a little while back, looking at the first 24 hours at Suvla Bay. After a number of requests, here is the diary in full, detailing conditions faced by men of the 1st Herefordshire Regiment at Gallipoli.  We’ll publish it in four parts.

This first episode deals with the first 24 hours, the first and day and night.  The landing at Suvla Bay, the lack of information, the desperate search for water, the advance of the Regiment, and Pte Pike’s Ross-o...

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In this month’s episode, Col Andy Taylor is joined by Rev Paul Roberts from northern France, to explore the story of the men of the Herefordshire Regiment who were transferred to the 11th Border Regiment (the “Lonsdale Battalion”). 

Paul Roberts visits Ten Tree Alley Cemetery of the Somme as part of his pilgrimage walk along the Via Francigena, from Canterbury to Rome.  The pair explore the brave and bloody action at Redan Ridge in November 1916, and the stories of the Herefordshire men involved. 

For more information about the Operation...

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Intrigued by a German sounding name on a war memorial at Walford, just outside Ross-on-Wye, Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts do some detective work in this episode.  They uncover the story Colin Baumgarte, killed with the Worcestershire Regiment on 27th August 1917 and his brother Conrad Baumgarte who served with the Herefordshire Regiment; the brother's Hannover-born father, Henry; and his links with trade in the town.

This leads our intrepid pair to the Market Place in Ross where Henry kept a hairdresser and tobacconists, and to links with the Ross R...

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This episode finds curator, Col Andy Taylor joined by Major James Hereford, former curator and Friend of the Museum.  James shares with us his deep roots in the county - right back to Maurice de Hereford in the 1140s.  We hear about several notable "Herefords" - including politically astute High Sheriffs and Pope-defying clerics.

We then hear about James' army career as a young Light Infantry officer in Cyprus, as an Aide-de-Camp in Malaya and his final posting as Training Major for the 5th Battalion, the Light Infantry (Volunteers).  A role tha...

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In this, our special Christmas episode, Colonel Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts are joined by Major James Hereford and Danny Rees .  Each of our museum boffins talk about their favourite exhibit in the Museum - we hear about the Drum Major's sash, Doenitz's car pennant, a captured Boer rifle and a medal with the regimental number "1".

The episode then takes a competitive turn, when our four experts take it in turn to pose questions and compete for a coveted glittery Santa hat, replete with regimental cap badge.  Listen to which st...

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This episode finds Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts taking a walk through the Herefordshire market town of Bromyard.  They begin in St Peter's Church in the centre of the town, taking a look at the unusual First World War Memorial there. 

Our wanderers then take a stroll round the corner to Kirkham Gardens to the former Territorial Drill Hall.  This building, today used as the detachment building for Bromyard's Army Cadets is probably the oldest Territorial building which has been in continuous use in the county.

Then a t...

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Often the best stories come out once we stop recording! 

In this short bonus episode we hear a little bit more about Bill Jackson's time with the Herefordshire Light Infantry in the mid 1960s, including escape and evade exercises with the SAS in the Cotswolds and over the Long Mynd, other regimental personalities, the infamous "bunny girl tail" incident in Newcastle and the importance of collecting oral history before its too late!

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This month we welcome old friend of the museum, Mr Bill Jackson to the podcast.  Born in Hereford, and founder and chairman of Jackson Property, Bill cut his military teeth with the Lucton School Combined Cadet Force and shares he reminiscences of troop trains to summer camps, bulling boots and progress to the dizzying height of Colour Sergeant. 

Poached by Colonel Tom Hill, Bill then became an officer cadet with the Herefordshire Light Infantry, responsible for a platoon across Leominster, Kington and Tenbury Wells.  We hear of of his experiences in get...

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Colonel Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts reconvene after the summer break, on the hottest day of the year, to follow in the footsteps of the Herefordshire Regiment at Gallipoli.  The Suvla Bay landings on 9th August 1915 were fraught with confusion, frustration and missed opportunities. 

Find out in this podcast how the Herefordshire men coped with being landed at the wrong place, with inadequate maps and water supplies, and with very sketchy orders.  Our pair look through eyewitness accounts of those first 24 hours and discuss the background of the campaign as wel...

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Join the podcast team on Castle Green in Hereford for an episode recorded at the Cadet Coronation Review for Herefordshire on 17th June 2023.  Hear the sounds of a Hawker Hurricane from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and over two hundred sea, army and air cadets from across the county on parade, reviewed by the Lord Lieutenant for Herefordshire, Mr Edward Harley.

Colonel Andy Taylor our Curator and Trustee Revd Paul Roberts explore the museum display put on for the event - a collection of medal groups containing Coronation and Jubilee M...

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The county Volunteers were known to be excellent shots, winning competitions at Wimbledon and later Bisley.  In this episode we take a deep dive into the history of the soldier’s main implement, the rifle – from the 1853 pattern musket, through the Snider Enfield rifle that would have been familiar to the first Herefordshire Rifle Volunteers.  Assistant Curator Danny Rees, Curator Colonel Andy Taylor and Trustee, Rev Paul Roberts go on to explore the Martini Henry, Lee Metfield and Lee Enfield rifles used in the Boer War and First World War.

 A number...

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The podcast goes international in this delayed episode of Just A Walk In the Sun.  Trustee Rev Paul Roberts and special guest, David Chambers travel to Belgium to explore the role played by the 1st Herefordshire Regiment in France in August and September 1918. 

Donning their walking shoes they walk up to the lofty heights of Mount Kemmel (or Kemmelberg as it is known today), the scene of bloody and bitter fighting in April 1918 and recapture by the 34th Division, including the Herefords, at the beginning of the Hundred Days Offensive which ev...

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In this month's episode, Andy Taylor and Paul Roberts are joined by Assistant Curator and all round expert, Danny Rees to explore some of the mysteries, unanswered questions and anomalies among the museum's collection and men from the Regiment.  From everything to confusing first names, unofficially altered shoulder titles to the perennial confusion between "Herefordshire" and "Hertfordshire."  (With not a hurricane in sight...!).

Safely within the walls of the Regimental Museum, we also explore three generations of Hereford men with the same same - Peter Broome-Giles, and the challenge this seems to...

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This month's episode finds Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts taking a walk around the highways and byways of Herefordshire market town, Leominster.  They start at the railway station exploring the story of the breakfast stop over for the a party of the 1st Herefordshire Regiment returning the Regimental Colours to Hereford at the end of the First World War.  Enjoy Andy trying (and eventually succeeding) to remember Sir Edmund Hamley's famous poem about Regimental Colours "A Moth-Eaten Rag"; the role colours continue to play in our army and the consecration of un...

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This month's episode finds Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts in the grounds of St Michael's and All Angels' Church, Bodenham at the grave of William Garland, who died on 27th July 1942.  Further research shows that, this Great War veteran died in the bombing of the Rotherwas Ordnance Factory, on the south-east outskirts of Hereford.

Our intrepid pair visit the site of the Royal Ordnance Factory, exploring its history during both world wars, including the fatal air raid, and other dangers and accidents faced by the workers there - who c...

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Happy Christmas everyone! 

In this special festive edition of the podcast, Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts explore different Christmas with the 1/1st and 2/1st Herefordshire Regiment during the Great War and with the Regiment on the River Maas in 1944.  They uncover the shopping list for Christmas dinner in 1914, which included 825 oranges and four hundredweight of plum pudding.

In contrast, they explore the 1940 Christmas of Fr John King, former Vicar of All Saints, Hereford, in Oflag VII-C - an officer's prisoner of war camp in Laufen on the Ge...

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In this month's episode, Col Andy Taylor and Reverend Paul Roberts reveal a family secret, explore the high streets and bye streets of the Herefordshire market town of Ledbury, and follow in the footsteps of Territorial bandsman and prisoner of war, Charles Percy Taylor.  Any relation?  Listen to find out!

Percy Taylor caused havoc in the town as one of the Mafeking Boys before running away to sea, only to return to Ledbury to work at Hopkins Garage and join the Herefordshire Regiment.  The war found him more at danger from fri...

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In this month's episode, Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts explore the contents of some of the Museum's cabinets - including a trip down memory lane for anyone who experienced army "compo" rations from the 1960s to the 1990s. 

They look too at some exhibits dating from the Volunteer Service Companies' time in the Boer War in 1900, including ghost-dated medals, rare tunics and the strangest of Christmas cards.  We also hear of the Hull brothers - Percy, later Sir Percy Hull organist of Hereford Cathedral interned in 1914 in Germany and hi...

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This month, in a delayed episode, Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts dodge the rain clouds and stay warm inside the Regimental Museum, exploring the history of Suvla Barracks, the Museum itself and one of it's prized possessions - Grand Admiral Doenitz's Car Pennant, liberated by the Regiment from Flensburg on the arrest of the Third Reich's final government in Operation Blackout on 23rd May 1945.

Though despite not stretching their legs, they do manage a beer to quench their thirst with a beer made in Poperinge, Belgium.  This town, seven m...

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This month, Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts take a walk in the sun around Canon Frome Court and St Laurence's Church, Stretton Grandison in search of the Hopton family. 

Learn about General Sir Edward Hopton whose medals the Herefordshire Regimental Museum recently reunited, and his crack shot, cello playing Olympian nephew, Lieut Colonel John Hopton who inherited the estate.  A visit to St Laurence's Church also reveals the original grave marker to Captain Guy Hopwood who was killed in action with the Royal Berkshire Regiment in 1915

The wa...

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This month join curator, Colonel Andy Taylor and trustee, Rev Paul Roberts as they investigate a local war memorial at Withington, Herefordshire.  Hear about the men and women commemorated in this Herefordshire village, a few miles east of Hereford and learn how to research casualties from the First and Second World Wars.
 
 The walk takes in the 14th Century church of St Peters and ends at the Cross Keys for a pint of Corbyn's ale.
 
 To find out more about this small solely Territorial unit from Herefordshire, in the Welsh...

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This teaser episode announced a brand new monthly podcast from the Herefordshire Light Infantry Museum. 

Join curator, Colonel Andy Taylor and trustee, Rev Paul Roberts to discover more about the history of this local Regiment from formation in 1908, through war service at Gallipoli 1915, Palestine 1917 and through to D-Day and North-West Europe 1944-45.  Find out why "Just A Walk in the Sun", and if anyone knows why the Lincolnshire Poacher was chosen as the Regimental Quick March.  Find out too whether the Hereford Best Bitter from the Hereford Brewery helped or hindered the...