Back to Library Journals

RAOC Gazette - page 93

Image details

Corps RAOC
Material type Journals
Book page
Chapter head
Chapter key
Chapter number
Full title RAOC Gazette
Page number
Publication date 1978
Real page
Colour No
Grey No
Early date 1978
Late date 1978
Transcription Jfor tlje
$Utorfc
OUR
OLDEST
MEMBER
EX-SQMS HARRY TOMMS was born in the year 1884 and
is, I believe, the oldest member of the RAOC Association,
certainly he is one of the founder members.
Harry enlisted at Aldershot for the AOC on the 25th May
1905 and was sent off to Woolwich. From there started a
career which took him to Sierra Leone, Singapore, France,
Germany, India, Hong Kong and China.
After discharge in 1927 SQMS Tomms joined the Civil
Service and was employed at Aldershot until final retirement,
Recently, he paid a visit to the Corps Museum —during his
ninety fourth year and almost seventy three years to the day
after his enlistment.
Photo Captain M. Parsons.
A cheque for £1,500 for disabled children.
The College has been supporting the nearby White Lodge
Centre for some three years during which time a total of nearly
£5,000 has been raised to help the children. Last year's donation
went to help finance a new classroom.
Picture shows the Centre's administrator, Mrs Carol Myer,
receiving the £1,500 cheque from Apprentice Sean Hetherington,
OUR
Ex-SQMS Harry Tomms aged ninety four and our oldest
Association member at the museum with RSM Terry Joll.
EBBAGE
COURT
MANY of his friends will be interested to learn that in June this
year a half million pound complex of Royal British Legion flats
for ex-servicemen was opened at Woking by Lord Hamilton
of Dalzell, Lord Lieutenant of Surrey, and named Ebbage Court
after Major V. S. Ebbage MBE BEM RAOC (Retd), who was
guest of honour with his daughter Joyce.
Vic retired from the Corps in December 1956, but as many
will recall, continued on in Ord 2 until his final retirement in
1966. Then at an age when most of us will be happy to rest
on our laurels, he took a wide interest in local affairs, one
such activity being to become President of the local British
Legion Branch. He was at the forefront of Legion activities
in Woking for several years and it was for this that he was
honoured.
APPRENTICES COLLECT
DISABLED
FOR
SENIOR
CONDUCTOR
RETIRES
CONDUCTOR BRADLEY at present the Warrant Officer-in-
Charge of the Stores Section at Long Marston and the Senior
Warrant Officer of the British Army, both by length of service
and by appointment, retires this month. He joined the Corps
in 1951, and after initial training as an RD instructor sub-
sequently qualified as a Technical Clerk. Within eighteen
months he was promoted to Sergeant, thus confounding the
crystal-ball gazers who had earlier prophesised a long career
as a private soldier! He was promoted to WOl at the age of
thirty one and appointed Conductor when he was thirty rive.
He has had a long, varied and much travelled career and his
wealth of experience will be a loss to the Corps. The high-
light of his career was being selected to escort The Queen to
the naming ceremony of the locomotive " Conductor" during
Her Majesty's recent visit to the Corps at Bicester.
WM
TiJSfWwwwmwi^
THE
OVER £1.500 was raised by the Apprentices College in a door-
to-door collection to help a disabled children's home.
About a dozen Apprentices, accompanied by the then Com-
manding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Norman Bruce, had a
chance to see how their money was spent when they visited the
Centre to hand over the cheque.
— 68
Conductor Bradley escorts Her Majesty during the visit of our
Colanel-in-Chief to the Corps at Bicester.
Book number R0247