I received a call in March from Major Jon Searle of 201 Battery and he enquired if I would like to look through whatever they possessed that related to the Bedfordshire Yeomanry before it was all packed up and sent to some repository, yet to be determined. I was rather surprised as I couldn't imagine how or why they would have had anything of any historical note. As I say, a silly notion really, as it's almost inevitable that a successor regiment will have something that relates to its predecessors, however distant in connection or time. To cut a long story short, I agreed to meet Jon at the TA Centre in Marsh Road, Luton. I took my daughter with me as I thought she could take photographs whilst I made notes.
It was clear when I got there that I'd arrived fairly late in the process. Stuff was literally packed in boxes, a lot of it not related to the BY. Some items had already gone - including the side drum that would have accompanied the bass drum that I described in a previous post. We managed to narrow down the items of real interest to just 3. But what lovely items they were. I've put a photograph of one of the items on the home page and the other two are shown below.
My grateful thanks to Major Searle for making contact.