THE GUIDES' RIDE ACROSS NORTHUMBERLAND.
MHE corps of the Northumberland Guides and Despatch Riders signalized its formation by riding on Thursday, March 26th, right across Northumberland, from Kidder Castle, on the verge of the Scottish Border, to Warkworth Castle, beside the North Sea—a distance, as ridden, of approximately fifty miles. The original suggestion of the formation of the corps came from the War Office, it is said, but it was not till Colonel Bates, D.S.O., took the idea up that any progress was made in the matter. Now the organization has been completed, and the county divisions into unions have been the basis of the scheme. There are eleven such divisions—viz., Norhamshire, Glendale, Belford, Alnwidr, Rothbury, Morpeth, Castleward, Tynemouth, Hexham, Haltwhistle, and Bellingham. Our Chief Guide is Colonel Bates. In each division there is a District Guide, who appoints local Guides in accordance with what he thinks the needs of his district demand. In the Bellingham Division, for example, where you will find, in the old maps, spaces marked "desert," "mountainous," and "uninhabited" or "waste land," more local Guides are, of course, required than in such divisions as Castleward or Tynemouth, dose to Newcastle-on-Tyne. Each Guide has to sign a form which runs as follows : "In the event of the employment of troops on active service in this county I am willing to serve as a Guide to the forces of his Majesty the King." He signs and becomes a member of the Technical Reserve. That is all that is necessary. This done, the Guide gets his badge—a neat circlet to fit into his buttonhole, enamelled with the county arms, and about them the legend "Northumberland Corps of Guides."
Previous page
