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| Victor Kearslake's details |
 John and i joined the irish guards in october 1961 and first met him in the receiving room facing the mrs we joined lance corp nash's squad the trained soldier was patterson. the rest of the squad was from left to right lilley, burton, buckley, pearce, mclaughlin, ferguson, tailor twins from lisnaskea, jimmy burke who was ex royal navy? johnston from york street. we went to germany on 6/6/62 and did our squad training with the battalion. i joined the assault pioneer plt. mclaughlin went awol john lilley
joined the mt the taylor twins went with 3 company to malaya. dennis pearce went to 2 company as he was 2 hands bigger than a grasshopper. jimmy burke joined the boxing team and later asked to leave as he had given a false name.
ferguson left after his 3 years and i believe took over the family business selling cars. last time i spoke to john i was his driver as he had lost his licence and had a 180 mercedes benz sports car. the last i heard he had moved to donegal and had bought a hotel this was back in the late 60s. i rejoined the battalion in 1971. spent 4 - 5 weeks in the guards depot doing drill and then joined a 13 week squad and from there went to the guards training depot in thertford and it was here i lost the fourth finger of my right hand going over a disused assault course at dusk. from hospital i returned to the guards depot but could not pass out due to my injury. from there i went to hong kong in 1971 where i rejoined the assault pioneer plt controlled by c/sgt danny sinclair. the monsoon season hit hong kong and were called out to a disaster at happy valley where a 2 bedroom apt was washed away and hit a 5 bed apt which in turn hit a 10storey apt and demolished them. the irish guards batt was put on standby because of the heavy rains they also had to go to kowloon to the work with the royal scots who in the end they had to use fire hoses to wash away the mud to enable them to get to the dead bodies. ref a famous irish guardsman from the ww11 and is a member of the n>ireland senate (sir john gorman) and his son was 2nd lt with irish guards and stayed with a judge who was trapped by his legs in the disaster. he received the george medal for his bravery after staying 3 days in the little hole with the judge.  Victor Buckley
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