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History Bowling Figure Marching Camp 2003 Camp 2002 Battalion Contact
History
The Company was formed in September 1995, the catalyst being the arrival of an enthusistic officer just moved into the village to join a former Captain from Luton and a former Lieutenant from Kempston. The existing residents had been wanting to start a company for a long time but the time now seemed right. The backing of the church was sought and given. At the same time the Captain of the nearest existing Company wrote expressing her faith in what we were doing and the Church received a letter from a couple of officers living in the village but serving in a Luton Company. Everything seemed to fall into place. After several planning meetings with the local Brigade Development Officer the company met for the first time in September 1995 with 5 Junior Section Boys.
Almost immediately a drum and bugle band was formed with as many officers as boys. A year later a Bell Lyre section was added and in 2000 a bass drum featured for the first time. As of October 2003 the band consists of upto 22 members only 6 of whom are adults. We are beginning to sound quite good!! Annual appearances of the band include St. George's day parades for the Scouts in Luton and Leighton Buzzard, the Lower School May Fayre, the Annual Display (mid May) and the Rememberance Day Parade in Harlington.
In 1998 the Company Section met for the first time with 3 boys. It now consists of 5, including a corporal and a staff sergeant. The Company's first President's Badge and its first Duke of Edinburg's Bronze Award were presented in March & May 2002.
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National 10-pin Bowling Championship
For the eithth time the company entered this Bedford based competition. In line with our tradition we again failed to qualify for the quarter final stage. Despite a very promising start - winning the first 2 rounds 2:1, we faild to pick up a single point against 1st Church and so missed out by 3 points. The three boys representing the company tried their hardest but were just outplayed in the last match. We were the first company to register for the 2005 tournament so .... roll on next year! You can get all of the details about this superb event from it's own web site by clicking here.
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Figure Marching
JUNIORS TRIUMPH AGAIN! The most recent Annual battalion Figure Marching competition was held on Saturday 8th February 2003 at Priory Church, Bedford.
Figure Marching demands a great deal of skill in remembering a complex series of manoeuvres, performed with accuracy, discipline and smartness. Smartness is also a key feature of the uniform inspection section of the competition.
Our company has entered this event in each of our 7 years of existence, initially in the former Luton and District Battalion and for the past 2 years as part of the new West Anglia Battalion. Our record on entering this years event makes impressive reading:
Won 4, 2nd 1, Retained 1 (event cancelled 1 year). We had a reputation to uphold!
Competition came from 5 other companies within the battalion, all eager to take away the title we had won last year! We were going to make it hard for them.
Inspection went well for us - the boys doing credit for the hardwork their mum's had obviously put into cleaning the uniform!
Who won?
We did - retaining the new battalion trophy for a 2nd year and 5 wins out of 7 entries.
Our aim - to keep other companies off the shield!
The full result can be found here
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Camp
From the very first year and every year the company has gone away to camp, usually in a church hall somewhere. This is the report of the latest camp:
Camp 2003
For the first time our annual camp took place on the south coast of England, in Worthing, West Sussex. St. George's C of E church hall provided good accomodation for the 12 boys who were a mixture of 3rd year Anchors, Juniors and Company Section boys. Two NCO's also attended and helped ensure another smoothly run camp. Activities included visits to a restored fort, a day in Butlin's, swimming, quiz night, board games including balloon powered car racing, unihoc, football and non-stop cricket. The Sunday morning Church parade was one of the most enjoyable that the company has ever been part of with a 'folk' band leading much of the worship and the Vicar insisting that the boys stand on the pews so that they could see a christening that was taking place. The BB band ensured that the residents of St. Georges Road new we were there!
As usual a great time was had by all.
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Jubilee Camp 2002
Tea time on Friday 31st May 2002 saw 10 boys and 4 Officers/Helpers depart from Harlington for a long weekend summer camp in Skegness. Our accommodation would be the halls of the Methodist Church where a former preacher at Harlington, Rev. Ian Banks is now the minister. We arrived at about 9pm in time for a walk along the front, soup, hot dogs and bed - eventually! Saturday was bright and sunny and the morning was spent playing games in the local park - followed by a precautionary trip to the local hospital for an x-ray on an injured foot. The afternoon was spent visiting the aircraft museum at Newark - very interesting. Sunday was never going to be a day of rest. Reveille was at 7am as usual. (Have you ever been woken by a strangled bugle! ). Inspection was followed by morning service and the band parading around the block afterwards, waking up the locals. A quick wash down in the swimming pool was followed by a full Sunday roast before the band turned out again! This time we appeared in front of a crowds of hundreds in the local park before an Ecumenical service involving all the local churches. The performance was greeted with applause and we led many, including the mayor, back to the church for an evening concert - Pied Piper style. The evening was spent watching a recording of the England - Sweden match having kept the boys away from the score all day long! Monday was a full day out to Lincoln. We visited the castle, walked round the walls and visited the prison cells. Unfortunately we weren't able to persuade them to take any of the boys. The weather could have been kinder so the afternoon was a toss up between a boat ride or 'Star Wars'. The picture won. On our return to the church we again turned the band out at short notice to help out a local street party. The kids joined in the marching, the adults sang along to the tunes and generally they gave us the warmest reception and applause the band has ever received. A great party atmosphere. Then it started to rain hard. Tuesday we awarded prizes to the winning squad and camp 'sportsman',prepared to return home in the evening and arrived back at 7:30pm - but the baggage didn't arrive until MUCH later due to technical problems with the van. An excellent time was had by all and the band worked extremely hard.
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Battalion
Our Company is part of the newly formed West Anglia Battalion.
One of the Junior Section events that did take place in 2001/02 was the Figure Marching competition. The 1st Harlington beat 3 other teams to win in impressive style.
The Battalion has a collection of equipment available for loan to companies. Details of the Treasure Chests can be found here.
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Contact
If you wish to contact the Company please do so through the site developer by e-mail: Send an e-mail
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