Darlington concert will mark 50 years of support for the Gurkhas

AS a member of the Gurkha Independent Parachute Company, I left Borneo to return to Malaya when confrontation ended in late 1966 and a year or so later I became Adjutant of the Queens Gurkha Signal Regiment. The end of Borneo Confrontation triggered mass redundancies throughout the Brigade of Gurkhas, which reduced in size by about 50 per cent, as many excellent soldiers were unwillingly sent back to Nepal. Selecting men for redundancy, who had been close comrades in Borneo, was an agonising task.

The future welfare of redundant men caused me great concern as most of them would have insufficient service to qualify for a pension, and I was therefore very pleased when the Commanding Officer, Able Dacre, returned from a meeting with the Major General Brigade of Gurkhas and told me about the launch of the Gurkha Welfare Appeal.

Every Regiment in the Brigade had been set a target of money to raise to “prime the pumps” in order to raise £1m. I cannot accurately remember our exact target figure but I remember saying that I thought it a very large amount. Able agreed but, typically, said we would double it.

My next appointment was in Nepal where one of my responsibilities was the welfare of pensioners in the east of the country. We also processed redundant soldiers as they came through and many of them made it quite clear that they believed they were being badly treated. In those pre-Gurkha Welfare Trust days, I had a small pot of money to help service pensioners who had suffered a disaster and it was quite common for an old soldier to arrive in my office to ask for help because his house, his family and all his land had been lost as a result of a landslide. More often than not his only possessions were the shorts he was wearing. The fund I held was so pitifully small that the most I could give him was about £40 to help him re-start his life and this experience of abject poverty really brought home to me the desperate need for the establishment of a proper system of welfare.

In response to this need, the establishment of Area Welfare Centres began and I trekked (no roads at that time) to monitor their progress. Each Welfare Centre was staffed by an Area Welfare Officer, an assistant and a medical pack holder.

Six-monthly meetings of all the welfare staff were held to update them and to distribute medical supplies. One of the medical pack holders (Gumandhoj – I remember him well) trekked for seven days to attend a meeting in spite of having a green-stick fracture of the tibia. He had been called to a meeting and there was no question in his mind that he would be there whatever his circumstances.

In 1995 the late Lt Col Denis O’Leary OBE MC and I started what is now the Yorkshire Branch of GWT. He was chairman and I was the secretary until, in 2002, he moved to Suffolk and I assumed both roles. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to continue to work for the cause I believe in.

The Gurkha Welfare Trust has been instrumental in helping to bring about some of the vast changes which have taken place in Nepal over the past 50 years. In the past year alone, our Pensioner Support Teams conducted just over 7,000 separate visits to Gurkha veterans and widows in the hills of Nepal. We paid over 4,500 Gurkha veterans, with an average age of 80 years-old, a pension worth 11,000 Nepali Rupees per month.

Our healthcare team treated more than 70,000 medical cases and our two residential homes housed 48 residents. Our rural water and sanitation team worked on over 90 new projects which installed over 5,500 separate tap stands providing clean safe water to households. The final products benefit over 30,000 people.

We built two model schools, worked on 20 building extensions, six total refurbishments and over 100 minor refurbishments. We also built 103 new earthquake-resilient homes for our most vulnerable pensioners.

However, there is still a need to maintain public awareness of the many problems and to raise money to alleviate the distress of thousands of ex-soldiers and widows, enabling them to live their lives with dignity.

The 50th anniversary of The Gurkha Welfare Trust will be celebrated in style with an annual regional concert in Darlington’s Dolphin Centre, organised by the Yorkshire Branch, at 7pm, on November 12.

This year marks the 19th concert in the series which has raised around £250,000. It will feature the Band and Pipers of the Brigade of Gurkhas.

The important milestone will be celebrated with the usual lively mix of western and Nepali music, as well as the kukri dance and the skirl of the Gurkha pipes.

The main sponsor of the event is North-East motor dealer Sherwoods whose chairman Alasdair MacConachie has a long association with the Gurkhas.

“My father was a Gurkha commander and I know only too well that we should be continuing to honour the debt we owe these loyal, soldiers and their families,” he said.

“It is vital that we share the memories of their sacrifices and the continued hardships back in Nepal with the next generation so their deeds and service to our country are never forgotten.”

• Tickets can be obtained from The Dolphin Centre and from Lt Col Ryding on 01969 663551 or keithryding@hotmail.co.uk