peter monahan

Not that I'm aware of, Hugh. I got a pastiche of old memoirs, old London Gazettes and some odds and ends in my searches for Tullochs, but nothing like a central source for HEIC info.

Excellent - especially for the Rangers!

I wonder what services one would render to be eligible for that very attractive medal.

A good choice! Well done, Azyeoman.

Hugh Good for you for turning up all that! I started to look for Tullocks in the HEIC but got bogged down by the sheers number of them. Severeal obviously did important things during the Mutiny, but the contemporary references in biographies are all to 'Mr. Tulloch' or 'Lt Tulloch', no first names given. Presumably one was just supposed to know. Anyway, I got discouraged and then distracted, so only got as far as 'E' being 'Edward'.

Paul Next you'll be telling us reality shows aren't real, you cynic, you.

Linden - is that who I think it is in your avatar box? 'No politics.', you naughty boy! BTW,Welcome to the GMIC. there are a few of we colonials lurki9ng in the bushes round here. Peter

The helmet is definitely early pattern. Not qualified to comment on the liner. Perhaps Stuart will share his expertise on this one.

Thank you for the clarification, Graham. Presumably collar badges would have been G.S. as well, then.

Oh, I'm sure it will go for above estimates. With a piece like this the auction house can afford to low ball it and then say 'See how much better...' Good marketing that. I suppose the good side of Lord Ashcroft is that the medals will be safe forever, as it appears they are all destined for the NAM in the end.

I would hope that it would be self evident that this numismatic abortion isn't a genuine medal! A nice idea, but 2.0 from even the Russian judge for execution!

Great! I love the one with the dugout equipped with a Grecian bust.

Spasm Word problem math to me: "If six weasels can dig half a hole in two days, why do wombats roof cars?" Heard yours before, 35 years ago. Still no clue. When I taught Philosophy and had to touch, briefly and painfully, on formal logic, I always had the kid with the best math mark teach that bit. But ask me how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and I'm your man!

Azyeoman I've always been fascinated by the Arab levies too - too much Lawrence as a boy? Hence part of my interest in the old Indian Army and what George MacDonald Fraser, in a comment on Tuareg, calls 'the wild men of the world'. Probably grossly stereotyping som eof the men you worked with, but an interesting lot both militarily and culturally. Peter

Looks as if there's a touching story there for whoever reads German script. Man, woman, man visiting his wounded comrades/subordinates... Thanks for sharing, Mervyn.

Yes, just read another reference to the myth on another web site - presented, and rightly so, as how science gets mis-used or misunderstood in the service of popular myth and a good story. Still embarrassed I got taken in, though.

Mervyn That's what I've been thinking. Or simply 'Died - 1922'. two other names on the roll are of men who were invalided home and died here, one on November 23, 1918. So he'll be in company!

It would indeed be a fitting tribute to what sounds to have been an extraordinary man. You may or may not know that General Romeo Dallaire, the UN commander in Rwanda has become an acknowledged expert on PTSD, based on his own experience's thee and after, and is now a human rights advocate of some fame, at least here in Canada. A horrible horrible chapter in human history and a story which deserves to be retold often as a lesson and warning on good intentions gone wrong!

The Labour Corps would lend plausibility to my theory that the well decorated Lt. s a former ranker, as a number of senior NCOs were given commissions in the L.C. I believe officers in the Corps wore their original unit badges as well, rather than the LC badge, but I may be wrong on that - half remembering something I read elsewhere not to long ago.

Yes, thank you for sharing that. I ave a fellow on the local WWI Honour Roll I'm compiling who appears to ave taken his own life and I'm not just sure how to deal with that information when I publish the roll. Always a touchy subject but, with our modern understanding of the mental costs of war, I think handled more compassionately now than in the past.

There is, as I'm finding in my own research, an amazing amount of info. available on a lot of the WWI soldiers. Makes them very human, even at this distance.

And, in all but one case it looks as if the 'fire missions', in modern parlance, were i direct fire - harassment and interdiction, on enemy areas, so some chance that no one actually died as a direct result of all that ammunition expended. I read an account recently of one incident in which three MGs were kept firing continuously for 18 hours in a long range, indirect fire, role against a piece of ground hundreds of yards away behind German lines . The expenditure of rounds was in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of rounds - I've forgotten the exact number but it was staggering. In fact, supply trains and columns supplied ammunition, fodder for the horses and food in that order, I believe. Hospital trains full of wounded were sixth or seventh on the priority list and often spent days on sidings waiting for clear lines. A sign of someone's priorities.

Nope, can't top DOS. Although I have persuaded the town clerk to take lessons in using the abacus from the guy who runs our 'ethnic restaraunt', because Joe's arthritis gives him Hell when he pulls that long arm on the adding machine dozens of times a day. Oh, and the buggy whip factory has put on a second shift. That's two people we won't have to send out of town for work!

Hello Rob A nice kukri to start a collection with. not a military blade, I don't think, but a good honest traditional piece, not part of the tourist trash one sees too much of these days. The tinder holder is an interesting addition, though I think from the construction that someone has added a new pouch to replace the ortiginal, based on the construction and what looks like modern thread to me. Still, a very fine blade with all the bits. Thank you for sharing it. Peter

The fun ones are the pre-'47 ranks: 'mistri' [and it is], lascar, syce, chaprassi and so on. Now its mostly odd abbreviations and, as noted, misspellings done I suspect by Hindi speaking mint workers whose grasp of English and military nomenclature is less than perfect. Or clerks who just don't care much, a universal in civil services!