Object Sep 2010

A short-lived Oxfordshire regiment

When Soldiers of Oxfordshire Trust volunteer and former TA soldier Bernard Robinson was going through some papers at home, he found documents relating to his service in a very short-lived Oxfordshire regiment, the “Oxfordshire Territorials”.

These fascinating snippets are now on show in the Object of the Month case at The Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock.

Bernard said, “It was at a time of defence reductions, and in order to avoid some TA disappearing altogether, the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry TA and the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars were amalgamated into the Oxfordshire Territorials. They even cooked up a new capbadge from our original ones.  For a year all seemed well, and I remember taking part in a parade at Winchester where we were inspected by the Queen, but then the money ran out and we were asked to sign that we would continue to serve but without being paid!”

And serve he did. But after two year’s existence the Oxfordshire Territorials were disbanded in 1969.

On looking at the papers, Bernard found the original purpose of the Oxfordshire Territorials, which was to maintain order after a nuclear strike, when the government feared “highly dangerous gangs of civilians which inevitably spring up as soon as there is any chance of successful trouble-making.”  Bernard joked, “Some people would say that is quite a good description of the TA!”