A Long Story
March 2, 2015 - The Chairman in Conversations with the General
Just so you know a bit about me. I was born in Kendal on May 25th 1788 and later trained as an engineer but in 1809 at the age of 21 I joined the Militia as a substitute for a man by the name of James Mason (The General thinks its the actor, but it ain’t stupid!) who “had been drawn by the ballot”. In those days one man in ten was drawn to be a member of the Militia whether he liked it or not. If he was desperate or had a bit of money he would pay to have his place taken. You could make a bit of money by taking a 
man’s place and for me it paid a badly needed debt. It was legal like but I found myself being sent to Ireland for a lot of rioting, well it wasn’t me rioting but we had to put down all these Fenians over some dispute in Parliament which I didn’t understand. Anyway military life appealed so in 1812 when I was in Galway I joined the 33rd Regiment of Foot, a mighty fine body of men if ever I saw. Just look at the uniform and that tasty cake on his sword. It was a havercake and thus the 33rd were known as the “Haveracke Lads”. Best thing I evers did. A bit later the regiment moved to Hull and there I got used to the foul weather o’ Yorkshire t’ never liked. So it was a good thing to be off on a spree in the Low Countries. I will tell you more about this later
