Just A Walk In The Sun with the Hereford Regiment Museum

Send us Fan Mail This episode finds curator, Col Andy Taylor joined by Major James Hereford, former curator and Friend of the Museum.  James shares with us his deep roots in the county - right back to Maurice de Hereford in the 1140s.  We hear about several notable "Herefords" - including politically astute High Sheriffs and Pope-defying clerics. We then hear about James' army caree...

Send us Fan Mail In this, our special Christmas episode, Colonel Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts are joined by Major James Hereford and Danny Rees .  Each of our museum boffins talk about their favourite exhibit in the Museum - we hear about the Drum Major's sash, Doenitz's car pennant, a captured Boer rifle and a medal with the regimental number "1". The episode then takes a...

Send us Fan Mail This episode finds Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts taking a walk through the Herefordshire market town of Bromyard.  They begin in St Peter's Church in the centre of the town, taking a look at the unusual First World War Memorial there.  Our wanderers then take a stroll round the corner to Kirkham Gardens to the former Territorial Drill Hall.  This building, today used a...

Send us Fan Mail Often the best stories come out once we stop recording!  In this short bonus episode we hear a little bit more about Bill Jackson's time with the Herefordshire Light Infantry in the mid 1960s, including escape and evade exercises with the SAS in the Cotswolds and over the Long Mynd, other regimental personalities, the infamous "bunny girl tail" incident in Newcastle...

Send us Fan Mail This month we welcome old friend of the museum, Mr Bill Jackson to the podcast.  Born in Hereford, and founder and chairman of Jackson Property , Bill cut his military teeth with the Lucton School Combined Cadet Force and shares he reminiscences of troop trains to summer camps, bulling boots and progress to the dizzying height of Colour Sergeant.  Poached by Colonel Tom Hill, Bill...

Send us Fan Mail Colonel Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts reconvene after the summer break, on the hottest day of the year, to follow in the footsteps of the Herefordshire Regiment at Gallipoli.  The Suvla Bay landings on 9th August 1915 were fraught with confusion, frustration and missed opportunities.  Find out in this podcast how the Herefordshire men coped with being landed at the wrong place,...

Send us Fan Mail Join the podcast team on Castle Green in Hereford for an episode recorded at the Cadet Coronation Review for Herefordshire on 17th June 2023.  Hear the sounds of a Hawker Hurricane from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and over two hundred sea, army and air cadets from across the county on parade, reviewed by the Lord Lieutenant for Herefordshire, Mr Edward Harley. Colonel An...

Send us Fan Mail The county Volunteers were known to be excellent shots, winning competitions at Wimbledon and later Bisley.  In this episode we take a deep dive into the history of the soldier’s main implement, the rifle – from the 1853 pattern musket, through the Snider Enfield rifle that would have been familiar to the first Herefordshire Rifle Volunteers.  Assistant Curator Danny Rees, Curator...

Send us Fan Mail The podcast goes international in this delayed episode of Just A Walk In the Sun.  Trustee Rev Paul Roberts and special guest, David Chambers travel to Belgium to explore the role played by the 1st Herefordshire Regiment in France in August and September 1918.  Donning their walking shoes they walk up to the lofty heights of Mount Kemmel (or Kemmelberg as it is known today), the s...

Send us Fan Mail In this month's episode, Andy Taylor and Paul Roberts are joined by Assistant Curator and all round expert, Danny Rees to explore some of the mysteries, unanswered questions and anomalies among the museum's collection and men from the Regiment.  From everything to confusing first names, unofficially altered shoulder titles to the perennial confusion between "Herefor...

Send us Fan Mail This month's episode finds Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts taking a walk around the highways and byways of Herefordshire market town, Leominster.  They start at the railway station exploring the story of the breakfast stop over for the a party of the 1st Herefordshire Regiment returning the Regimental Colours to Hereford at the end of the First World War.  Enjoy Andy try...

Send us Fan Mail This month's episode finds Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts in the grounds of St Michael's and All Angels' Church, Bodenham at the grave of William Garland, who died on 27th July 1942.  Further research shows that, this Great War veteran died in the bombing of the Rotherwas Ordnance Factory, on the south-east outskirts of Hereford. Our intrepid pair visit the si...

Send us Fan Mail Happy Christmas everyone!  In this special festive edition of the podcast, Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts explore different Christmas with the 1/1st and 2/1st Herefordshire Regiment during the Great War and with the Regiment on the River Maas in 1944.  They uncover the shopping list for Christmas dinner in 1914, which included 825 oranges and four hundredweight of plum puddi...

Send us Fan Mail In this month's episode, Col Andy Taylor and Reverend Paul Roberts reveal a family secret, explore the high streets and bye streets of the Herefordshire market town of Ledbury, and follow in the footsteps of Territorial bandsman and prisoner of war, Charles Percy Taylor.  Any relation?  Listen to find out! Percy Taylor caused havoc in the town as one of the Mafeking Boys befo...

Send us Fan Mail In this month's episode, Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts explore the contents of some of the Museum's cabinets - including a trip down memory lane for anyone who experienced army "compo" rations from the 1960s to the 1990s.  They look too at some exhibits dating from the Volunteer Service Companies' time in the Boer War in 1900, including ghost-dated...

Send us Fan Mail This month, in a delayed episode, Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts dodge the rain clouds and stay warm inside the Regimental Museum, exploring the history of Suvla Barracks, the Museum itself and one of it's prized possessions - Grand Admiral Doenitz's Car Pennant, liberated by the Regiment from Flensburg on the arrest of the Third Reich's final government in Op...

Send us Fan Mail This month, Col Andy Taylor and Rev Paul Roberts take a walk in the sun around Canon Frome Court and St Laurence's Church, Stretton Grandison in search of the Hopton family.  Learn about General Sir Edward Hopton whose medals the Herefordshire Regimental Museum recently reunited, and his crack shot, cello playing Olympian nephew, Lieut Colonel John Hopton who inherited the es...

Send us Fan Mail This month join curator, Colonel Andy Taylor and trustee, Rev Paul Roberts as they investigate a local war memorial at Withington, Herefordshire.  Hear about the men and women commemorated in this Herefordshire village, a few miles east of Hereford and learn how to research casualties from the First and Second World Wars.    The walk takes in the 14th Century church of St Peters a...

Send us Fan Mail This teaser episode announced a brand new monthly podcast from the Herefordshire Light Infantry Museum.  Join curator, Colonel Andy Taylor and trustee, Rev Paul Roberts to discover more about the history of this local Regiment from formation in 1908, through war service at Gallipoli 1915, Palestine 1917 and through to D-Day and North-West Europe 1944-45.  Find out why "Just A...