It was a profoundly moving experience, not least because it was the regiment with which I cut my teeth as an infantryman decades later, and with whose history I inevitably became familiar.
There were many things that struck me as I walked along serried rows of CWGC headstones, each carved immaculately with the cap badge of my youth. One in particular was the more mature ages of the Regulars who were KIA or DOW during the first months, some with familiar Welsh names, but many not. Regular soldiers tended to come from all over Britain in those early battalions, but as time advanced into the Kitchener battalions became apparent, with a greater preponderance of Welshmen and graves sometimes inscribed in their language.
Although there were still some older men, many more of the stones were inscribed with teenagers barely out of their youth, and many more stones were marked 18 and 19, in those instances when ages were known. There is of course nothing new about this, but I thought it might be an appropriate juncture, here and now, in light of these events, to post some photos of the Gymnasium Staff of 1st Bn RWF in , when they were based in Aldershot.
Battalion gymnasiums were relatively newish things, having gained some impetus around the turn of the century and newer barracks were usually built with them already incorporated, but the many more older barracks had them either converted from other buildings, or newly built in a suitable space.
The gymnasiums were generally run by a sergeant of the Army Gymnastics Staff, who wore his corps badge on his chest, and the qualified corporals who assisted him were taken from the service companies after attending a course of instruction at the central gymnasium in Aldershot, which is still the the headquarters of the successor corps today. The assistant instructors were assigned for duty in a similar way to regimental policemen assigned to work with the provost sergeant in running the battalion guardroom.
