Drill by numbers

Gordon. wrote:

13 check 1,2..followed by present arms and a general or royal salute..That`s the way i remember it.must have done dozens of them during my three years at Harrogate.Can`t remember ever doing one after my passing out parade..

What he said, 13 check one two. I check every morning and both are still there. General salute present arms. Nearly always caught the back of my heel with the other foot doing that or was that breaking ranks? Memory is going but to be honest hated drill. Leave that sort of thing to those chappies outside buck house.

Having done my depot with the Canadian Guards, we were taught all sorts of good stuff drill wise. My best memory is being told that one, " sways and swaggers when marching to the pipes". This was something I remembered when I took up the pipes. My Pipe Major was ex Canadian Guards Pipe Band. That was a bit of information from the RSM " The Rock", can't remember his name, but I read where he died a few years ago in my home town, Brockville Ontario.

Hardrats,that was Rock McManus,not a nice man.

Gordon. wrote:

13 check 1,2..followed by present arms and a general or royal salute..That`s the way i remember it.must have done dozens of them during my three years at Harrogate.Can`t remember ever doing one after my passing out parade..

Yep!. In fact we got so much practice at it at Harrogate that you didn't need to count the paces anymore, just listened for the bass drummers double tap.

Mike

Gordon. wrote:

Change direction left or right could be a complete lulu,as the mark time segment tended to speed up a little

Are you thinking of left and/or right form Gordon? Only left forms (in slow and quick time) used for the Harrogate grad parades.

Mike

Gordon. wrote:

13 check 1,2..followed by present arms and a general or royal salute..That`s the way i remember it.must have done dozens of them during my three years at Harrogate.Can`t remember ever doing one after my passing out parade..

Thinking about it a bit more (obviously nothing better to do at the moment) at Harrogate it was more of a 13 check scrape bang scrape. All ex Harrogate Apprentices must remember that unique drill movement the "Harrogate shuffle" halt. How it developed and why everyone did it when we had been taught the "proper" check, 1, 2 halt in basic training I have no idea. I even recall the RSM (Welsh Guards) while I was there giving up trying to enforce the drill-book halt on us and trying to make the shuffle smarter by telling us not to scrape studs during the halt.

Thinking about it even deeper (why ) the Harrogate shuffle wouldn't really work in DMS.

Mike

Quote :

the Harrogate shuffle

??

Never heard of it,must have been after my time..

We RA Brats at Hereford also did an unofficial type of halt, involving a sliding in of the left boot.
I never realised that other Junior Leaders mobs adopted it too.

You could also spot an ex-boy a mile off by the way he would swing his arms out from his body. This type of arm swinging developed in the band. Swinging arms front to rear would have resulted in the hands bashing into the bugle and the trumpet with which the trumpeters were festooned.

It is amazing that often you can tell an ex squaddie by the way they 'walk'. It is more like ramrod straight walking with clenched fists, a sorta semi official signature.

mjm34 wrote:

Gordon. wrote:

13 check 1,2..followed by present arms and a general or royal salute..That`s the way i remember it.must have done dozens of them during my three years at Harrogate.Can`t remember ever doing one after my passing out parade..

Thinking about it a bit more (obviously nothing better to do at the moment) at Harrogate it was more of a 13 check scrape bang scrape. All ex Harrogate Apprentices must remember that unique drill movement the "Harrogate shuffle" halt. How it developed and why everyone did it when we had been taught the "proper" check, 1, 2 halt in basic training I have no idea. I even recall the RSM (Welsh Guards) while I was there giving up trying to enforce the drill-book halt on us and trying to make the shuffle smarter by telling us not to scrape studs during the halt.

Thinking about it even deeper (why ) the Harrogate shuffle wouldn't really work in DMS.

Mike

Also known as "The Arborfield Slide".

i was only thinking about this subject the other day, how do you think it would if we adopted the American way of drill,.I cant quite see the guards division doing trooping the colour singing
"The RSM is a sonofabitch got the blue ball crabs and the seven year itch"or "I dont know what youve been told but eskimo pussy is mighty cold um good,mighty good, good for you good for me".I am sure there are a few more songs out there well you get the picture or is that song can you imagine HMQs face

101 Airborne (screaming chickens, no offense, fine soldiers) stayed at Hobart barracks Detmold around about 1976 after exercising with us. They used to run around the camp singing silly songs but it kept them happy.

At that time, the dollar took a dirty nose dive and as they were paid in dollars, they were getting a very poor exchange rate. We ended up buying them lots of beer in our club and generally getting our own back for what they did to our women in WW2. Got any gum chum?

Teabag wrote:

101 Airborne (screaming chickens, no offense, fine soldiers) stayed at Hobart barracks Detmold around about 1976 after exercising with us. They used to run around the camp singing silly songs but it kept them happy.

At that time, the dollar took a dirty nose dive and as they were paid in dollars, they were getting a very poor exchange rate. We ended up buying them lots of beer in our club and generally getting our own back for what they did to our women in WW2. Got any gum chum?

Naughty,naughty bad boy

"Stand still...Not a move, not a flicker!"

"Squad....As you were..and if you weren't, get there..NOW!"

"Sar' Major, how do you move Guardsmen?"
"In bundles of ten , Sir!"