Below are letters wishing us good luck. Our thanks for their kind thoughts and for taking the time to contact us.

To ….. The Organising Committee Vintage Penrith

 

 

            Two weeks ago I was on holiday (from New Zealand) in Penrith, staying with my good friends Bev and Ann Risman in Matterdale, and heard the buzz going round the town of the Grand Parade planned for this coming Thursday.  I would love to be there to witness the spectacle – even more so as I now hear that the band of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) are to be playing as the central musical attraction in the parade.  I would have been thrilled to be there to see them perform as I was in REME myself – as an engineer.  Firstly, as a national serviceman and subsequently as a regular career soldier.  I now live in New Zealand.

 

            I was born and bred in Cumbria in a little village (Papcastle) just a mile outside Cockermouth.  I know the Penrith area well, and am very sad that I will miss your Grand Parade.  My schooling at Cockermouth and subsequently at Workington Technical College was engineering based, and so when the Queen called me to join her army in 1956 it was natural to be drafted into the Corps of REME.  I was commissioned as a National Serviceman in 1957 and served in Aden, Germany and New Zealand.

 

            Bev Risman and I grew up together in Cockermouth, we were inseparable best mates always pitting our sporting skills against each other in every sport imaginable (rugby, soccer, golf, tennis, snooker, putting ….knitting …everything ) he always had the damned edge on me.  We did everything together, and then along came this lithe shapely young lass (Ann Hebson .. his current wife) and offered him more than poor little me.  However sport continued to dominate my life after joining the army and I played for REME at rugby, golf, tennis and squash, and for the army at tennis.

 

            During the recent disastrous floods in my home town of Cockermouth I kept in contact (from New Zealand) with friends in the town – being updated regularly on the devastation that the flood waters were creating.  Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to see the aftermath – sadly it will be many years before Cockermouth main street is back on it’s feet again.  My luck of having a hard uncompromising Cumbrian upbringing stood me in good stead throughout my army career – Cumbrian lads are built of tough stuff.  I retired from the army (REME) in 1979 as a Lieutenant Colonel and emigrated to New Zealand.

 

            Please pass on my best wishes to the lads in the REME Band, and congratulate them for making the long trip up north from Arborfield to God’s Own County – I’m a very proud Cumbrian.  Long live “Vintage Penrith”

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Frank Burns (Lt.Col Retd)