THE editor's notebook in the Gazette 50 years ago this week contains a heartfelt tribute to the latest inhabitants of one of the army camps, which in those days still surrounded the town.
"The typed orders outside the CO's office at Merebrook Camp these days reads: 'sentries will carry one pick handle, one torch, one whistle'.
"And that seems ironic for the new home of the 22nd Special Air Service-men, just home from killing Chinese terrorists in the jungle war with communism, and said recently to be ' probably the toughest, and certainly the most unorthodox fighting unit in the world'.
"There are heroes in residence at Merebrook just now, not least the CO himself, Colonel 'Tony' Deane-Drummond, MC and bar, veteran of Dunkirk, Italy and Arnhem, glider champion and man of amazing war (and peace) time exploits. he once broke out of a German prison by hiding thirteen days in a cupboard in the guardroom!
"There are heroes in every rank, like Sgt Roger Lenet, who got the BEM for gallantry in Malaya, or Sgt Davidson, who hitch-hiked from Oman (where the Sultan's enemies were wiped out on a bare mountain) to Malaya.
"I know the chairman of the council is extending the town's welcome officially, and I hope these fine men will be as happy here as previous units have been."
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