When I first returned to the Royal Signals fold, after what had been a very considerable period, one of the first things that I did was to join my local branch of the RSA and also re-subscribe to "The WIRE".

I must admit the ulterior motive I had was that I hoped I would, through membership, find a few old faces. Unfortunately this was not the case but on the plus side it did enable me to make the acquaintance in my area of a lot of ex Royal Signal's personnel whom I have since became friendly with. (Birds of a feather and all that.)

But the real bonus was that it introduced me to the RSA reunion weekend held at Blandford on the last weekend in June each year. This is a really enjoyable event, very well organised and presented and well worth the effort to attend. It also enables small groups like ours, who could never hold a reunion in our own right, a chance to get together and put the world to rights over a few jars, unfortunately not Tiger.

In 1999 a dozen ex-249'ers, who had not bothered before, made the journey to Blandford to attend. In 2000 it was 19 plus wives, we even managed a group to march in the "Golden Oldies" Parade and although in some cases it was over 30 years since last contact with a Drill Square, we were more than presentable. (Provided you just reacted and did not think about it, the orders and movements came back naturally.) Hopefully in 2001 even more will swell the numbers who now make this an annual pilgrimage. (The above was written by Graham Jolly in late 2000.)