A LIKING FOR ARTILLERY (and other bits and pieces)

 

Ray Waters

Ray Waters, otherwise known for obscure reasons as Yogi, says he has been meaning to write for a while, having found mention of MR’s liking for artillery in Whensoever, and now other mentions of cannon in OtH

 

It was a dark and stormy night (we are talking of Wales), in about 1954, I think. The Brecon Cannon was one of a pair of ceremonial or signal examples, beautifully polished, which lived just inside the main gate, on the Brecon Barracks guardroom verandah, flanking the door.

            There was a sentry at the gate. He somehow became engaged in distracting conversation. One cannon, and its carriage, were removed behind his back and placed in the three-tonner. Pity that it wasn’t really a practical proposition to bring the pair.

            There are four of us still about who remember this event, although none of us can remember being personally involved in this disgraceful wickedness. Neither was it one of us who tried to get it chromium plated at 32 MU. Definitely not me, Guv! One member, however, does remember the fuss caused at St Athan MR.

            We got blamed for everything. There was the bus stop erected outside the West Camp NAAFI one night in, I think, 1953. The SWO, who ended up with it in his office for ages, once asked me if I would like to take it home with me, and I hadn’t admitted to knowing anything whatever. The original intention had allegedly been to put it up on the top of Pen-y-Fan, because we thought a bus service up there would be really useful. When it was apparently left hidden behind lockers in the equipment store, it was very early morning. It was a shock to see it standing beside the road adjacent to the NAAFI at around 8am, when we part-timers marched to the Technical Area. We knew and said nowt. We didn’t know how it got there. The only people at MR HQ when we left for late supper and bed were the Team Leader and the O i/c. They were far too respectable to cart it a mile or so across the station and put it up in the wee small hours, surely?

            Again in the 1950s, a copy of Scottish Field gravitated to St Athan MR. It carried a reader’s photo of an old ship’s anchor found on top of a Highland mountain. Some phone calls told us of the existence of a rumour held by members of some other teams, other than Kinloss, to the effect that Kinloss had put it there. In those days, with no Contraptions, Clattering, R, big enough to be of practical use, how and why could they have done it?

            As a corollary, last time I visited Culzean Castle, some years ago, I saw a rather interesting piece of ancient muzzle-loading ordnance with a surprisingly short, spectacularly wide barrel. It was either a very big mortar or a very squat howitzer. It looked a bit like a militant wide-mouthed frog. If I see any other interesting and potentially accessible artillery pieces, do I inform RCS, or the nearest team?

            I’m not yet terminally AWOL, despite the website.