2:33pm Tuesday 17th November 2009
By Dennis Signy
It was always a source of amusement to me that 14894617 former Sergeant Signy was elected a member of the officers' Mess at Inglis Barracks at Mill Hill and passed the port and brandy to vastly superior ranks on regimental occasions.
Successions of military men listened indulgently over the years to my repetitive tale of learning to drive up the Khyber Pass and being Britain's lone field security man on the Afghanistan border as an 18-year-old whose only experience of life was as a cub reporter in wartime Hendon reporting that bombs were dropped "in southern England".
"Did you see active service?" I'd be asked by the brigadiers and colonels. I'd show them my "war wound" on my right hand where an excitable local gentleman stabbed me with a knife when I held out a hand of peace during the Punjabi riots. The sad truth is that it's all in the past; I went to dinner with Graham and Gill Slyper last weekend and, when I showed the "scar" from the Punjab to fellow guests Hank and Doris, it transpired it is no scracely discernible.
Having had harsh words to say about having to cough up in my council tax towards the 2012 Olympics and Ronnie Biggs being moved to a care home in Barnet - I hope that the council taxpayers won't have to pay for his ticket if he gets his reported wish to go and watch the Arsenal, - I must record my pleasure that the officer's Mess at Mill Hill is to be preserved.
I just loved life at the Mess. News of the development plan for 2,174 new homes, a new primary school, a GP surgery and offices and shops records the welcome preservation but gives no clue what the building might become.
My association with the barracks goes back to my inititial days as a young reporter circa 1942 who used to visit the CO, Colonel Maurice Browne, who was also a Hendon magistrate, to discuss Middlesex Regiment matters.
Years later another magistrate, Eric Stitcher, invited Mrs S and I to dinner. When we arrived at his home in Woodstock Avenue, Golders Green, he said he and I had somewhere to go before dinner.
He drove us to the Drill Hill at Finchley, where rows of chairs were laid out for what proved to be an Army Benevolent Fund meeting. A colonel opened the proceedings, then said that they had to appoint a new chairman - and the one nominee was Eric Stitcher.
Eric strode up to the top table, thanked the handful of people present for the honour and announced that I was the new secretary. Then we left to go to dinner.
Eric decided that we would make a fresh start and dispensed with the other committee members, who included Denis Thatcher. We were a two-man committee and, for the next 40 years, the Barnet ABF appeal never held a meeting.
When Eric moved to the Isle of Man I assumed the mantle of chairman, secretary and treasurer and acquired Margaret Thatcher as my president on the basis that there were no meetings to attend.
Over the years the barracks became a focal point. We held regular curry lunches in the Mess and became the top fund raisers for the ABF by a variety of fund-raising ventures.
Frankie Vaughan, once my neighbour in NW11, did a show in the barracks gym for me and a coachload of his fans travelled from Northampton to join us. Star turns, comedian Bernie Winters, guitarist Bert Weedon and singer Grace Kennedy, were all top of the bill at the barracks.
We raised £89,000 at a gala fund raising night during the Falklands conflict and another endearing memory for me is of Mrs Thatcher shedding her Iron Lady image by kicking off her shoes and playing the drums with the National Car Parks band.
More memories. Meeting the Queen on the lawn outside the Mess ... the IRA bomb ... early morning visits to watch the Forces Post Office in operation... the dodgems imported for a Summer Ball.
It's great to know that the Mess is to be preserved .... hopefully as a venue where the port and brandy could get passed round again.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.times-series.co.uk/trade_directory/