Episode 5 In the Highest Tradition

DRILL SERGEANT SHOUTS ORDERS

'You may be under the impression

'that the death penalty has long been abolished in Britain. That is not so.

'Every man here has sworn an oath to lay down his life for his monarch.

'Failure to expose himself to the risk if ordered to do so

'renders him liable to lawful execution.

'The contract to the British soldier is as unique

'as the traditions of the regiment he serves.

'Charles II, in 1656, was the first sovereign

'to raise a regiment for his personal protection.

'In 1815, after Waterloo, they became the Grenadier Guards.

'The Queen is now their Colonel-in-Chief.

'The Guards, perhaps to the irritation of other regiments,

'exude an effortless superiority

'that survives the apparently proletarian ill manners

'of eating with their hats on.

'It dates from the days of draughty messes

'and they see no reason to take them off.

'In any other regiment, you would be fined.

'Fine books, like that of the 18th Hussars in India in 1883,

'are less testimony of reproof,

'than an indication of what the lads were capable of getting up to.

'Drawing a sword in the mess, 15 rupees.

'Striking bets before the cloth had been removed from the dinner table,

'another 15 rupees.

'Today, the currency of the fine is champagne.

'Among the subalterns of the 16th/5th Lancers,

'fines are imposed not only for ghastly behaviour,

'but social indiscretions

'that will strike despair in the hearts of many a lady.'

There's one. Charles Moore.

Causing a group ejection from the Ritz Hotel, Piccadilly,

by seating himself uninvited at the tearoom piano

and giving a prep-scholic rendition of Chopsticks!

LAUGHTER

Here's one. Alex...

- Captain Edie having a female friend

who lives in a numbered house.

LAUGHTER

'And then there's the wagers book.

'Major Willie Peter of the 13th/18th hussars.'

Some of them, though, were on a more intellectual level.

Here we have one. Captain Cotterill waging at 2nd Lieutenant Haslam

that he will giggle at some stage during the dining out

of Captain John Wadmore on Wednesday 22nd October, 1969.

The wage is to be one bottle of champagne. Captain Cotterill won,

as Mr Haslam giggled within 30 seconds of the wager being taken.

Again, here is another one

on the authorship of a novel by Len Deighton.

Not much Kierkegaard here!

And the last one, perhaps, is on officers' futures,

other interesting things like that.

Lieutenant Scroobie here wagers Lieutenant Cameron

that Lieutenant Knowles' penalty for his exciting adventures

with the military Land Rover in the Brompton Road, Knightsbridge,

will not exceed six extra duties or six extraordinary officers,

as it is normally called.

Scroobie won this one

because Lieutenant Knowles was not given any extras for his adventure.

He was however asked if he would mind awfully

seeking alternative employment, which Lieutenant Knowles readily agreed.

So that's the betting book.

'All of this contradicts the impression

'that young officers take themselves seriously.'

Oh, I don't think people do take themselves seriously.

I think, in a way, at times,

that people think we realise we're characters on the stage

so we fill the path by filling in the books.

It doesn't detract from standards, it just adds to amusement.

'On exercise in Germany, those standards never slacken.

'The Warrior is the new hi-tech personnel carrier

'of the Grenadier Guards,

'men traditionally associated with impeccable drill

'outside Buckingham Palace.

'Colourful tradition bucks up the tourist trade,

'but do the guards believe it contributes to bravery?'

No, I don't, I'm afraid.

I think it's a backcloth which people will draw reference on.

I mean, you know, it is something that a commanding officer

or company commanders or sergeant majors will perhaps reflect on.

I think it is unlikely.

What is much more the thing

that makes people do brave things is really comradeship.

It's the corporate spirit.

The loyalty to your platoon, to your company, to your battalion.

I don't think anybody thinks about Waterloo.

- Leave, march-ins, please.

'Yet the Guards are riddled with traditions.'

- March in.

- Sir, Sergeant. Attention!

THEY SHOUT ORDERS

- Sergeants, quick march!

Left, right, left, right, left, right. Mark time!

Sergeants, halt!

Left turn.

- Sergeant Jones? - Sir!

- Sergeant Worrel? - Sir!

- Sergeant Warrington? Sergeant McEwan. Sergeant McTaggart.

Sergeant Davis? - Sir!

'This discreet little gathering of sergeants

'from all five regiments of Foot Guards is called "CO's memoranda".

'Each sergeant has his own traditional

'and jealously-preserved style of response.

'Even the door opens by some kind of traditional magic.'

March! Left, right, left, right, left, left, right!

- That is all for Commanding Officer memoranda, sir.

Leave to fall out, sir, please. - Yes, please, Sergeant Major.

The drill sergeant's words of command need sorting out.

- Sir.

DRILL SERGEANT SHOUTS ORDERS

- The world sees you as elite. Do you see yourselves as elite?

- Well, there is only one Grenadier Guards. My answer to that must be,

certainly, we do. I can't say yes, because Grenadiers never say yes.

'To outsiders, the elimination of the word "yes"

'can be baffling and infuriating.'

Lance Corporal Teague, sir.

I think it probably emanates from, really,

Grenadiers having an unquestioned obedience.

I think that the word "no" was rather irrelevant,

it was never used, it was always, "Yes, sir."

"Yes" becomes redundant, so you just say "sir".

- Can you give me a few acting examples of this?

You know I've been lying to you

or I'm asking you to do something ridiculous. How do you...?

- "Sir?"

And then you get... You are given a rocket.

You say, "Sir!"

It does not mean you are very happy about it

or very unhappy about it, but you accept it.

"Sir!"

You are told something that you simply don't believe.

"Sir?"

You are told something

which you definitely do disagree with and don't like.

"Sir."

So it's very useful and, used in its different inflections,

it's a useful mechanism.

'The Queen's Association with the Grenadier Guards

'stretches back to the war years when,

'as the 16-year-old Princess Elizabeth,

'she became colonel of the regiment.

'On her 18th birthday in 1944, her soldiers paraded for her at Windsor.'

MARCHING BAND MUSIC

NEWSREEL: 'Apart from the occasion itself, the princess' birthday,

'what distinguished the ceremony was the presentation made to her.

'This was a replica in miniature

'of the King's Colour of the 1st Battalion, the Grenadier Guards,

'with her own monogram.

'It was presented by Colonel Prescott.

'As you will see, the fine workmanship of the gift

'proved quite irresistible to the Princess and the Queen.

'The colour will in future be mounted

'whenever Her Royal Highness attends the parade

'or inspects any battalion of the Grenadier Guards.'

She became the colonel of this regiment in the middle of the war.

It's an association which we are very proud of.

And the story goes that she has, from time to time,

referred to this regiment as "my Grenadiers"

and it's something which we are very proud of.

'For the young princess, it was the start, literally,

'of a relationship for life,

'for she is also commander of the elite Queen's Company.

'Average height - 6ft 2 inches.

'Each year, the Queen's Company present her

'with an album of their activities and each year,

'with mutual tradition, the Queen is photographed

'with the company's officers.

'Not only as her grandfather, George V, had done in his reign,

'but in precisely the same spot.'

By...the left!

'There is rather more to it than an exchange of courtesies,

'for the Queen's Company provides the pallbearers for all dead monarchs,

'acknowledging what she describes as "the important ceremonial duties

'"on great and solemn occasions of our history",

'The Queen wrote this to them -

"I have sacred memories of the reverend care

"shown by the bearer parties of my company

"at the funerals of my father and grandmother."

'Down the ages, the demon drink has not been unknown to the British Army.

'This tradition, Guards officers walking in straight lines

'to prove that they are sober enough to lead their men,

'might well have a future in civilian life.

'But the days of heroic pre-yardarm drinking are gone.

'Among the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards,

'there are those who order soft drinks before lunch.'

CHATTER

'There is also the most civilised custom here which averts the dangers

'of buying a round.'

Yes, I offered Bijan a drink when I was asking for my own drink,

but we do it out of courtesy to each other.

We are not actually paying for one another's drink.

My drink will go on my mess bill.

Bijan's drink will go on his mess bill,

as it would if we offered any other officer in the mess a drink.

It would go on their own mess bill, rather than paying for it,

thereby avoiding any necessities to have large mess bills

or to get into unnecessary drinking of rounds,

it is just a matter of courtesy, not of payment.

'Civility prevails. Off-duty officers always buy a bottle

'of tangible compensation for the orderly officer

'left to dine on his own.'

- Your champagne, sir.

- Thank you very much. I'll enjoy that very much later after my duties.

'It's the pride of the regiment

'that even the corkscrew comes on all fours.'

- Go on. Go on!

-Good boy!

'A long way from these effete party tricks

'stands the town of Burnley in Lancashire.

'The children here, thank God, have never known wars.

'But their forebears did and at Burnley Miners Club,

'the North's answer to Annabel's, is the living and drinking proof of it.'

Two Bennies, Margaret, please.

'The key word here is "Benny", short for Benedictine.

'Although the chances of hearing Gregorian chant

'on a stroll through the old cotton town are rather remote,

'Burnley's links with one of the more secular aspects

'of French monastic life are considerable,

'thanks to the Queen's Lancashire Regiment in World War One.

'The monks, when they were not at prayers

'or painting elaborate scrolls in books, produced alcohol,

'a liqueur that some see as "a southern poofter's drink".'

- It's not a southern poofter's drink up here, though.

We sell an awful lot of Benedictine.

It's come about from the First World War.

I think that David has the history of it better than I do.

- The First World War, the local TA regiment, 5th Battalion,

was stationed close to the monastery.

They liked the stuff, brought it back and it's developed ever since.

In fact, it probably sells more now

than what it did when it first came across.

- Well, we do sell an awful lot.

It has been said that we sell more than anybody in the world,

believe it or not.

It sounds silly from a little place like Burnley,

but over Christmas we sold, it was about a four-week period,

we sold 241 bottles.

- Most certainly, this club,

Alan's said, MAYBE it's the biggest outlet in the world,

but it is a fact that it is the biggest outlet in the world

and Burnley, Nelson, Colne, Accrington, that area,

is the biggest outlet in the world by no shadow of doubt.

- Put out the glasses again. Get some more glasses...

'The army has a disarming way

'of confessing its booze-related indiscretions.

'For instance, why do the 14th/20th King's Hussars,

'a Northern outfit,

'parade to completely the wrong regimental march?'

It became the regimental march of the 14th/20th King's Hussars in 1922.

Before that, it was connected to the 14th Flight Dragoons.

The band itself was in Dover.

The regiment was coming back from abroad

and, of course, it's normal for a band to go to the dock

and play the regiment in.

On this particular day, the sea was very rough,

so the bandmaster, being a good chap as he was,

took the band away down to the pub and they got so drunk, of course,

when they came for the band to go and play at the dockside,

they could not perform at all.

So they had to go up to the Dover Castle

and ask the band of the 35th Foot, the Royal Sussex regimental band,

to come down and play for the regiment to dock.

This they did and the colonel from the 14th and 8th Dragoons

and the 35th Foot, the Royal Sussex Regiment, decided that,

from that day,

the band would have to play the Royal Sussex regimental march,

the Royal Sussex.

- Today, of course, the band is entirely sober at all times

and never takes drop.

- Have I got to comment on that?!

BAGPIPES SKIRL

'A beverage hardly distinguishable from nuclear heavy water

'is Atholl brose, much favoured by the King's Own Scottish Borders.

'It's ostensibly prepared to a secret recipe of a former Duchess of Atholl.

'Someone had to make porridge palatable.

'The subtlety would appear to come from pouring in Scotch whisky...

'..adding Scotch whisky...

'..and then topping it up with Scotch whisky.

'Atholl brose is a serious drink,

'much in evidence on St Andrew's Night, a serious occasion.'

Gentlemen, we now drink in solemn silence

to our patron saint, St Andrew.

'The toast to St Andrew is drunk in silence,

'about two large tots per man, from a quaich, a Scottish loving cup.

'But the great moment, of course, is trooping the haggis,

'hardly less impressive than trooping the colour.

BAGPIPES STOP PLAYING

'Naturally, the CO initially inscribes it

'with the cross of St Andrew.'

CHATTER

'The Queen's Own Highlanders observe an equally solemn tradition

'when toasting a departing Commanding Officer.'

Gentlemen, I propose a toast. Highland honours, Colonel Peter.

Colonel Peter.

ALL: Colonel Peter.

'Well, it does save the washing-up!

'The King's Own Scottish Borders

'have recovered from the Atholl brose, or have they?

'A sergeant in Russian uniform?'

Right...slow...march!

'It's the sergeants' annual challenge to their officers.'

BAGPIPES AND DRUMS PLAY

- It's a bit of fun,

but just underneath,

it is an opportunity for the sergeants and the officers to mix

and get together, both during the event of the challenge

and afterwards, when they have a drink.

It's a chance for one mess to upstage the other in competition

and a little bit of good-natured needle, if you like.

In particular, the sergeants' mess always set out to win

and they normally do, which is rather fun, that they reverse the tables

for the day and are seen to be the leaders.

The NCOs are very much the day-to-day managers.

They make things work.

It's the officers who, if you like, paint the picture,

the background, but both have got to have a mutual respect.

It's got to be equal in both directions, although the officers

are higher-ranking, if you like, and are paid slightly better.

The more that we can get together and work as an outfit, the better it is.

If you have too much of a separation

between the officers and the sergeants' mess,

the rest of the unit will suffer.

- "Five and his gang arrived with a bang

"They wish us to go sledging

"But they should beware

"That we dinnae care

"And that we are oot

"To embarrass them mair

"As requested by your chap..."

- Like everyone else,

we need a bit of light relief. We are a very cost-effective army.

In some ways, we are very stretched throughout the year,

doing all of our normal business.

It is nice to have one day where it is slightly less serious.

There's another aspect, which is, of course, the Jocks all come and watch

what we're up to, I think that they get a certain amount of amusement

out of seeing what the officers and the sergeants are doing.

It's just a little bit of a change,

but it's part of the glue, again, the friendship bond,

taking part in this sort of thing that helps to hold us together

when it comes to more serious things like operations.

Yes, well, I'm the caricature of an army officer,

which keeps everyone very amused.

They know fine that I'm terrified and not a very good horseman,

so that is another bit of fun

and perhaps laughing at yourself a little bit.

It does us no harm at all.

SHE LAUGHS

Thank you!

- You can put them back in now. - I thought it was part of the game!

BANG!

SHOUTING

BANG!

SHOUTING

First of all, the timescale, we always run this on a day

which is not a working day.

It is normally run at the weekend, so it is our own time,

and secondly, this is entirely funded by the individuals.

We don't use anything in there

that is costing any great money to the taxpayer.

BAGPIPES SKIRL

BANG!

'The Germans find it utterly bewildering.

'A few years ago, the smoke was so intense,

'they thought the Russians were coming through again.'

BAGPIPES SKIRL

SHOUTING

'The entire proceedings are accompanied by the bagpipes,

'just as they were under graver circumstances

'at the Battle of Loos in September, 1915.

'Then, it was piper Daniel Laidlaw

'of the 7th King's Own Scottish Borderers who, 13 years later,

'was to play himself in a cinema reconstruction of the action.'

GUNFIRE

Zero hour came,

the whistles blew

and very little happened.

It was Laidlaw who saw that very little was happening.

He got up on the parapet of the trench

and the Germans started to shoot back. They...

He fired up his pipes, played the regimental march

and the soldiers got out of the trench and went forward

and Laidlaw went too.

When he was within a couple of hundred yards of the German wire,

he changed from the regimental march into the regimental charge,

the Standard on the Braes o' Mar,

and they went forward and they captured that trench.

And the terrible thing was that the battalion,

who started off 900-strong,

took 650 casualties that morning

and there were only three officers left at the end of it.

They took the enemy front trench

and they went on and they just disappeared.

A lot of them just disappeared.

They went into the German second line,

they were cut off and shot down.

'Amid the carnage, Laidlaw won a Victoria Cross,

'an object of visible pride to his great-grandson, Kevin,

'when he visits the regimental headquarters at Berwick-upon-Tweed

'74 years later.

'Back in Berlin, officers of the Black Watch are still serving penance

'for a predecessor's shortcomings

'a little matter of some 137 years earlier.

'On the 15th day of each month, they assemble at dawn.'

Some things haven't changed very much.

In the Crimea, sadly, one of the Highland Brigade picket officers

was fast asleep when he should have been patrolling the lines.

The whole idea of a picket officer

was he stayed with the outlying pickets

to make sure that the enemy did not come in.

Well, at dawn, a Pecheneg Cossack regiment

managed to penetrate into the Highland Brigade lines,

the picket officer was fast asleep

and Sod's law had it that the duty piper was very young,

he knew he had to wake the brigade up,

but he could not remember what pipe tune it was.

So what he did, he started playing any tune that came to his head,

and that is why Crimea Long Reveille

has such an extraordinary medley of tunes.

Eventually, he got to Johnny Cope,

the traditional Scottish reveille, commemorating Prestonpans

when people were asleep as well,

so as a punishment,

all officers in what is left of the Highland Brigade

now have to get up,

this time of the month, with the attitude to remind themselves of A,

what the pipe tunes are and secondly, what their duty is.

Similarly, it helps the pipes and the drums

to learn what Johnny Cope is as well.

'For the Black Watch, it is not only tradition, but a pertinent reminder.

'They are frontline troops again,

'since the frontier between West and East actually bisects this building.'

I mean, we are standing 50m from the border.

My own company office,

I can sit and wave at the East German border guards from.

Similarly, there is a tower overlooking me now, as we film,

they are no doubt filming us.

So we have to be ever-alert.

The threat is actually theoretically, they could have a surprise attack

and their start line would be 50m from where we are standing now

and the officers' mess would be evaporated.

'Beyond the wire fence,

'there still remain 6.25 million Eastern Bloc troops

'and, for all the talking,

'enough nuclear weaponry to annihilate Western Europe.

'Vigilance is more than a dawn tradition once a month.'