Come and `ave a go if you think you`re `ard enough

Back in the summer of 1961, the Duke of Gloucester presented the 10th Royal Hussars with new colours. Now, being a posh cavalry regiment, the `colours` ( a big flag really on the end of a stick) were referred to as the Guidon. So, for his Dukeness to do the job properly, there had to be a Guidon parade, when the entire regiment was formed up into four `guards` - each one with about 50 soldiers - and the regimental band - and a complicated marching routine was coreographed to bring a sombre gravitas to the flag on the stick business.

Snopper can be seen in the third rank from the front and sixth from the left, looking resplendant in blues, white webbing and brandishing a sword. This was the No. 1 Guard - the bees knees - selected for their unfailing ability to turn left and right rather nicely and march up and down whilst carrying out complex (and highly dangerous) manoeuvres with the swords.

To reach this pinnacle of perfection, drill sergeants were bussed in to our barracks in Germany from the Grenadier Guards about six months before the great day and for all that time we were shouted at and threatened (nothing new there then,) we were kitted out with the posh uniforms and trained in the inscrutable art of sword drill.

Came the fateful mid-summer day, the sun shone unmercifully, orders were barked by officers on horses, we went into our routine like a chorus line and stood to attention while the Duke `inspected` us - just us - just No. 1 Guard. It seemed clear to me that after all that effort, his Dukeness didn`t really pay us too much attention - he seemed to be in his own world, oblivious, perhaps because of too much pre-parade hospitality in the officers mess. The irony wasn`t lost on me and, as I invariably saw the farcical side of all things military, I allowed the faintest of smirks to pass across my countenance.

This was not lost on the Regimental Sergeant Major - a rigid beast who was so meticulous that he had labels on everything (a pencil in his office had a label saying `pencil`) - standing about 300 yards away - and so my military career was forever tainted with the charge of smirking whilst in the presence of someone really important. Such a shame.