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Anglo-Danish Society 90th Anniversary Dinner at the Tower of London and the Ceremony of the Keys, Wednesday 18th June 2014 ‘An evening steeped in history’ On a warm and sunny June evening 35 members of the Anglo-Danish Society and the Danish Guards Association in Great Britain arrived at the West Gate of the Tower of London. We were met by a young officer of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment (PWRR) and directed towards their Headquarters, which forms part of the HQ building of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers - the RRF was raised at the Tower in 1685. Passing through the three massive gate bastions and walking along the cobbles of Water Lane towards the Outer and Inner Wards that surround the central White Tower, one cannot help but be impressed by a deep sense of history, especially when the place is empty and all the sightseers have left. Work on the White Tower was begun back in 1078 on the orders of William the Conqueror – well before Bishop Absalon was granted the land to build Copenhagen. The Tower itself was just part of an extensive system of Norman Castles built throughout Britain by King William ‘to stamp his authority’ over his Anglo-Saxon subjects. Over several centuries the Tower has been extended and improved as an impressive fortification. It still contains the Queen’s House, a Royal residence for use by the Queen if ever she so chooses. History was indeed to be a great part of the evening. The occasion was part of this year’s celebration of the 90th Anniversary of the Anglo-Danish Society. Members of the Danish Guards Association had been invited along since the PWRR has strong links to Denmark and a bond of friendship with the Royal Danish Life Guards regiment. We were met by our charming host, Colonel Wayne Harber K, OBE, the PWRR Regimental Secretary, together with our Chairman Mr Christian Williams and his wife Riitta. We then congregated in the Fusilier Museum, where we were served a welcome drink and met the other guests. The museum itself was fascinating - we had the opportunity to inspect many interesting artefacts while we waited, including busts of both Hitler and Mussolini ‘liberated’ at the end of WW2 and the full dress uniform of King George V as Colonel-in-Chief of the RRF. We had been ‘advised’ in advance that there would be ‘some very distinguished persons present’ and one would expect that this would naturally include prominent attendees such as Mrs Inge Mitchell R, former Secretary of the Society, Mr Palle Pedersen R, of the Danish KFUK, Mr Alexander Malmeus, Chairman of the Anglo-Swedish Society and his wife, Jacqueline, and of course the three Danish law graduate guests, Miss Birgitte Barfoed, Miss Louise Christensen and Miss Nina Kristensen. But our Secretary was really referring to the three very distinguished members of the PWRR who were present; our host Colonel Harber OBE, resplendent in his Knight Commander of the Dannebrog insignia, and Colonel James Coote DSO, OBE - but the most distinguished of all, Lance-Sergeant Johnson Beharry VC, one of just 9 living holders of the Victoria Cross, and the only serving VC holder in the British Army today (the Australians have three VCs serving). Colonel Coote, then a Major, was commanding officer at Al-Amarah in Iraq in May and June 2004, when on two occasions driver Private Beharry acted with the greatest heroism. In the first action he selflessly and repeatedly exposed himself to direct enemy fire to save the lives of several of his fellow soldiers, and in the second action, despite himself being severely wounded in the head, he saved his fellow soldiers again but later required brain surgery. Major Coote had the task of writing the recommendation for Johnson Beharry’s Victoria Cross. I was particularly delighted to meet Colonel Coote again, as several years previously he had given a very impressive talk on the Al-Amarah battles to the Danish Guards Association. We were ushered into the dining hall of the officers’ mess, where a long table had been laid and decorated with regimental silverware and Danish flags. There was an impressive silver trophy centrepiece, flanked at one end by a beautiful silver Danish guardsman figure about 25 cm tall (a friendship gift from the Royal Danish Life Guards regiment ) and at the other by a similar- sized silver figure of a WW1 British Tommy. Our host, Colonel Harber, gave a welcome speech where he explained his regiment’s Danish connections and why PWRR had moved its HQ to the Tower. The PWRR is a recently formed amalgamation of the twelve earlier ‘Home Counties’ regiments of Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Middlesex. Of these, the Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment, raised at Putney in 1661 as the 2nd Regiment of Foot, is the senior English infantry Regiment of the Line. But it is the Royal East Kent Regiment, The Buffs, which has the Danish connection. The Buffs trace their history back to 1572, when 3000 men from the Trained Bands of London (another London connection) paraded before Queen Elizabeth I at Greenwich. Some volunteered for service in Holland, and on their return to England in 1665, became part of the British Army as the 3rd Regiment of Foot. This regiment became Prince George of Denmark’s Regiment in 1689 when he, as husband of Princess Anne, the future Queen of England, became their Colonel-in-Chief. Prince George retained his colonelcy until his death in 1708. Almost 200 years then passed before, in 1906, King Edward VII appointed his brother-in-law, King Frederik VIII of Denmark as Colonel-in-Chief of the Buffs. King Frederik must have made an excellent impression, for the honour was then offered to his son King Christian X, who followed as Colonel-in-Chief after his father in 1914. King Frederik IX again followed his father as Colonel-in-Chief first of the Buffs in 1947 and then of the amalgamated Queen’s Own Buffs in 1961. After further amalgamation in 1966 to form the Queen’s Regiment, Queen Margrethe followed her father in 1972 in the role of Allied Colonel-in-Chief and then, when the Princess of Wales relinquished her colonelcy in 1996, Queen Margrethe became sole Colonel-in- Chief of the PWRR. Thus there has been a close association between the Danish royal house and the Buffs and PWRR for over 125 years. But that is not all - when a Danish recruitment office was established in October 1940 in London, many Danes who joined the Allies (like Anders Lassen, who also was awarded the Victoria Cross) were commissioned into the Buffs. After the war, in September 1945, some 2500 Danes signed up to join the British Army on a three year contract to replace British soldiers returning home after the war. Many were posted to the Buffs. They served in India, Palestine, Suez, Greece, Italy, Libya, Sudan, Kenya and the Gold Coast, as well as in Bermuda and other places abroad. As recently as 2003 there was still an active Danish section of the Buffs Regimental Association - former Buffs servicemen living in Denmark. The PWRR traces its antecedents back to 1572 and the Holland regiment, which formally became part of the British Army in 1665. The Royal Danish Life Guards, though formed in 1658, later incorporated the King’s Drabant Guard, originally formed by King Frederik II in 1571 and part of the Danish Army since 1666. The two ‘brother regiments’ thus have similarly long histories and the Danish Guards Association is privileged, honoured and proud to be invited each year to march with the PWRR’s contingent on Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph. Perhaps the only other non-Commonwealth old soldiers’ organisation officially invited to be represented and to march at the Cenotaph is the Marine Corps Association of the USA. Colonel Harber explained that both the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and the PWRR have antecedents in the Trained Bands of London and in the Middlesex Volunteer Regiments, so it is only right that they now share their HQ at the Tower. But he added that the PWRR actually only has three rooms of office space within the building. So, perhaps the famous exhortation of the Adjutant, Lieutenant Cotter, to the 2nd Buffs on parade in Malta in 1855, “Steady the Buffs, the Fusiliers are watching you!”, is still very much appropriate today. Colonel Harber’s speech was answered by Mr Christian Williams for the Anglo- Danish Society. Christian wanted to be brief and thanked the Colonel for a very fine dinner arrangement and hoped, since the Society’s Patron and the PWRR’s Colonel-in-Chief are both HM Queen Margrethe, that there might be more in the future. He pointed out that the prime function of the Society today is to provide scholarships to support selected Danish graduates wishing to further their studies in UK, such as the three Danish law graduates present, and vice versa for British graduates wishing to study in Denmark. Towards the end of a most delicious meal, a Yeoman Warder of the Tower arrived to explain the evening’s concluding event, ‘the Ceremony of The Keys’. Yeoman Warder Simon Dodd, a former Warrant Officer of the Grenadier Guards, explained that this same important ceremony has been carried out every night without fail, come rain or shine, since 1340 when King Edward III held court at the Tower - that was before the Black Death plague killed about a third of Europe’s population and the Hundred Years War with France killed more again.

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