For the last nine years of my service in the Army I was based at the Prince of Wales's Division Depot, Crickhowell from where I covered most of South Wales spreading the word about career opportunities with the Royal Regiment of Wales and the Royal Welch Fusiliers. I had a team of twelve soldiers, a display vehicle, a mobile shooting range and the wherewithal to demonstrate infantry weapons. The team was constantly travelling during the summer, and during the winter I used to arrange visits of school children to the Depot, stage Military Tattoos, and produce Regimental Band and male voice choir concerts in leisure centres within the principality. To bolster my resources, I made use of Junior Soldiers wing at Cwrt y Gollen infantry training camp, the Territorial Army, branches of the Regimental Association and even In-Pensioners from the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, where my regiment (the Welch Regiment) was raised in 1719. When I heard that 'Shenkin', the regimental goat of the 3rd (Territorial) Battalion, Royal Regiment of Wales was barred by quarantine regulations from going overseas to annual camp, I offered to look after him for the fortnight the Volunteers would be away.
I had forgotten about my offer until I arrived for work one Monday morning and saw a trailer in the car park with SHENKIN painted in large white letters on the side. Commanding Officer's Conference was the first event of the week, so I parked my car and joined other members of the Depot staff in the large room on the upper floor of Depot HQ.
The Commanding Officer started off by saying that a most remarkable incident occurred during the previous Saturday afternoon: "The 3rd Battalion goat arrived at the guard room," he began. "The adjutant and I knew nothing about it and there was nobody on the phone at 3/RRW in Cardiff."
I operated independently of Depot HQ and felt a tinge of conscience about not telling anyone and not making proper arrangements for its reception. I stuck my hand up and said: "I'm sorry, Colonel, I should have asked you if we could look after Shenkin while the 3rd Battalion is away at camp," and as an afterthought, "I hope it's not too late." The CO concerned is a good friend of mine and rarely loses his cool. I must have touched him on a raw nerve as he exploded when he found that I was to blame.
"Do you realise you nearly put two people in hospital last Saturday afternoon?" he said, and then told me that if I had any more ideas about making the Depot an animal sanctuary, would I please ask first.
I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself, but it wasn't until I left the conference room that I found out about the two people I had nearly hospitalised. It was the Quartermaster who gave me a 'blow-by-blow' account of what happened.
It seemed that a Land Rover towing a trailer pulled up at the guard room and the driver, who also happened to be the Goat Major of the 3rd Battalion, dismounted and asked the guard commander to sign for his goat. "He's staying with you for two weeks while we are away at camp," he said, handing over a suitcase containing a green coat with regimental embellishments, two silver horn tips, a fore-head badge and a regimental cane. The guard commander had been given no warning about the new arrival but, as the Goat Major was pressed for time, the first essentials were to park the trailer in the car park and put the goat in the pen specially constructed for such eventualities. This posed a problem as no one could remember a goat being accommodated there before. The key was not in the guard room so a runner was sent around to the Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant's married quarter to see if he knew where it was. "Ask the Drum Major to come as well," said the guard commander. Another member of the guard was sent to the far end of the camp with a barrow and told to bring a bale of hay and a bale of straw from the stables to complement the fodder and bedding material already in the trailer.
Eventually, the Drum Major appeared followed a few minutes later by the RQMS who had found the key in the quartermaster's stores. The goat was removed from the trailer and led across to its pen where the RQMS was busy arranging straw on the floor of the sleeping quarters. Goats can accelerate to 30mph over fifteen feet, which was about the distance between its horns and the RQMS's backside protruding from the bed space. The impact hurled the warrant officer like a cannonball on a horizontal trajectory until his head hit the wall. Shenkin then searched for another target and found one in the form of the Drum Major who had just locked the gate from the inside. As he turned around, the goat butted him in the 'goolies' and incapacitated him as efficiently as it had done with the RQMS.
Until it could be established why the regimental mascot of the 3rd Battalion had appeared in Cwrt y Gollen camp, a drummer was detailed to look after the animal, but after the CO's conference two days later, a member of my staff took over.
Shenkin accompanied my team throughout the first week to agricultural shows and carnivals and was the centre of attention wherever he went. Much of his time was spent eating whatever was offered and nibbling the fingers of young children who crowded around him. Halfway through the following week, I gave him a day off and the (temporary) Goat Major tethered him to a stake on the opposite side of the road from the officers' mess in Cwrt y Gollen camp. There, the grass was green and plentiful and was an ideal place for Shenkin to sit and chew cud.
I was walking from my office to the mess for lunch one sunny day when I noticed the officers' mess cook sunbathing a few feet away from the goat. I thought at the time it was a strange thing to do, but I put it down to the fellow's East European upbringing. He had come to Britain as a refugee after the 1956 Hungarian uprising against communist rule and had made a name for himself by producing his version of Hungarian goulash and other less well-known, but equally delicious, Magyar dishes. The mess manager was asking if anyone had seen the cook as there was only ten minutes to go before lunch was due to be served. I pricked up my ears and told him that he was sunbathing on the grass verge outside. That startling piece of information was investigated and the mess manager found that instead of sunbathing, the chef was unconscious.
Water was splashed on his face until he levered himself on one elbow and looked around. When his eyes focused on Shenkin munching grass a few feet away, he burst into a torrent of abuse in the Magyar dialect which, roughly translated, went as follows: "You heathen goat whose mother should have been eaten by wolves - don't expect me to get you out of muddle any more!"
When the chef had been helped back to the kitchen and given a glass of beer to assist his recovery, he explained what happened.
"I went outside for a puff on my cheroot and saw the goat unable to move because his legs were tangled by rope. We used to keep goats at home in Hungary and many times I have had to unwind rope so they could eat the grass. I spoke quietly to the goat and told him not to worry as I would soon have him out. When I had freed all four legs - he butted me here (pointing towards a large red swelling on his forehead), and I don't remember any more."
There was talk that the chef was going to sue the Ministry of Defence for damages, but a quiet word from the Quartermaster about job opportunities for refugees made him think again and the matter was smoothed over.
A week later, the (permanent) Goat Major turned up to collect Shenkin. Three members of the Depot staff, who were still nursing their injuries, were glad to see him go while the Commanding Officer - an old South Wales Borderer, had still to be convinced that Kashmir goats, even if they came from the Queen's herd in Whipsnade Zoo, should be elevated above their station.
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