ME and Ophelia

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BRIAN DOUGLAS EDWARD JONES
1930 - 1995
IN ARDUIS FIDELIS

In Arduis Fidelis ('Steadfast in Adversity') is the motto, in Latin, of the British Royal Army Medical Corps in which my father served as a regular soldier for 25 years.

My father died of throat cancer eight years ago today and was buried, dressed in his Regimental Sergeant Major's uniform, on October 6, 1995.

At the funeral in St Mary's church, the coffin was draped with the Union Flag and a wreath of red poppies. The vicar, an ex Royal Army Medical Corps Chaplin, who was stationed in Cyprus around the same time as my father, read out the Regiment's prayer.

At the graveside it poured with rain. Nearby, a young serving soldier stood in uniform next to a tall cypress tree and played the Last Post on a bugle.

The above epitaph is engraved in gold, beneath the sign of a simple cross, on a black marble headstone in Axminster Cemetery, Devon, England.

I am conscious of what I write in this blog, as it will outlast me. Generations to come may read this.

Godwilling, by next year's anniversary when I am a more experienced blogger, I shall try and blog more about my father and our life as a family of British Forces dependents living together in Nairobi, Kenya (Mau Mau), Belgium, Cyprus (Eoka), England, Scotland and Germany.

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