On Wednesday 17 May 2023, commencing at 14:30 hours, there will be a service in Salisbury Cathedral to dedicate the Book of Remembrance of the Royal Gloucestershire Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment (RGBW), the Royal Gloucestershire Berkshire and Wiltshire Light Infantry (RGBWLI) and The Rifles. It is envisaged the service will last approximately 45 minutes. Those who attend will be required to be seated by 14:15.
During the course of the service the names of the 16 members of RGBW and RGBWLI who died will be read out and then a representative ten names from the 62 Riflemen lost on Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (those Riflemen ideally coming from the four counties of the RGBW (Berkshire, Bristol, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire) will be read out.
At the end of the service the Book of Remembrance will be processed to St Michael’s Chapel in the South Transept of the Cathedral where the first Stand of Colours of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Royal Regiment (Berkshire and Wiltshire) are laid up and the DERR book of Remembrance is housed.
The service will be confined to the area of the Cathedral known as The Quire which limits the attendance to 200 people. Priority of ticket allocation with go to the 62 Next of Kin of the 26 names to be read out with a further 47 to being allocated to guests of the Regiment representing former Colonels of the Regiment, Commanding Officers of 1 and 2 RGBW, Lord Lieutenants of the four counties, representatives of The Rifles, previous Regimental Trustees and a representative of each of the four County Army Cadet Forces. The balance of the 91 seats will be for members of the Association.
If any of the invited guests are unable to attend then those ‘reserved’ allocation will be transferred to become available to the Association.
Initially invitations to the guest will be sent out electronically. Those members of the association who wish to attend may do so through a link shortly to be promulgated on the RGBW Association web page, with hyperlinks being made available on social media. Those guests and Association members who are one of the 200 attendees will receive a Pour Memoire Ticket which will need to be produced on the day to gain access to the service. Those who served in RGBW will receive preferential allocation from the association allocation of 91 seats
After the service the attendees need to move as smoothly as possible to The Wardrobe, where once reassembled there will be a short service to scatter the cremated remains of the Disintegrated Colours of the H. M. 62nd (Wiltshire) Regiment of Foot into the Wiltshire Regiment’s quadrant of the Regimental Memorial garden followed by a short prayer for those who passed away during the Covid 19 pandemic.
Once those short services have been completed everyone is invited to partake of afternoon tea prior to dispersing for their onward journeys home.
A few points for those wishing to bid for an allocation of tickets. There will be no parking in the Wardrobe so once people have been allocated their tickets part of the information package will be advice as to suitable parking alternatives. We are examining the feasibility of having an area made available within the Close but that, at this point in time, has not been confirmed.
Should members of the Association wish to gain a definite allocation of a ticket, we are seeking a dozen member to act as ushers and we would wish to have Standards of our Regiments on parade, those being one each from The Gloucestershire Regiment, The Royal Berkshire Regiment, The Wiltshire Regiment, The Duke of Edinburgh’s Royal Regiment (Berkshire and Wiltshire), The Royal Gloucestershire Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment and The Rifles. This would require six Standard Bearers.
We already have a member of the RGBW| prepared to be the person who will process the Book of Remembrance at the end of the Service.
Further questions or enquires made by made to either
thesecretary@rgbw-association.org.uk
or
chairgbwassn@gmail.com
