THE LILY WHITE
(Lilywhite is the nickname for The Coldstream Guards)
As Remembered By Hugh West
It was early in
the morning that I struggled up the hill
I’d travelled down from Glasgow over night,
Almost sixty years have passed but I remember still,
The day that I became a Lily White…
I met the sergeant of the guard
when I walked through the gate,
At six foot four he was an awesome sight,
Five ribbons on his tunic and his back was ramrod straight,
He was every inch a Lily White…
In a day or two a squad was formed
under Corporal Potts,
He taught us first our left foot then our right,
We drilled beside the Micks & Taffs, the Grenadiers & Scots,
And sweated to earn the title Lily White…
For twelve long weeks he moulded
us, employing every trick,
We moved around like eagles in full flight,
We blancoed and we polished and we scrubbed, brick by brick,
He said “By god, I’ll make you Lily White”…
We were passed out by the Commandant
and sent to Aldershot,
And joined the Third Battalion there on site,
We found that constant training was the guardsmans lot,
Especially if you were a Lily White…
We soldiered in Windsor then moved
to ‘The Big Smoke’,
But we hardly got a chance to see the sights,
Parading here and working there it really was no joke,
For the amazing man they called The Lily White…..
The next move was to Tripoli on
the trooper Empire Test,
From Liverpool we sailed at dawns first light,
Seven days at sea we pitched and rolled and did our very best,
To uphold the standard of the Lily White…
We settled into Gialo Barracks,
a wartime ‘Iti’ camp,
And everything was clean and shining bright,
With the outfit who had left it we shared a common stamp,
The First Battalion of The Lily White..
When King Farouk of Egypt got tossed
out on his ear,
It looked like we were heading for a fight,
They flew us into Fayid then trucked us to Tel El Kebir
The Third Battalion of The Lily White,,,
T.E.K. Garrison was enormous with
stores of every type,
And the Arabs used to raid it every night,
They knew just where to crash the wire and when the time was ripe
But not the sector guarded by The Lily White…
It was in the winter of fifty two,
a night I remember well,
We were wakened to the scene of flames and lights,
Harry Christer and Tapper Brown were in the middle of that Hell,
And we said farewell to two good Lily Whites….
Then there was the battle of T.E.K.,
it didn’t last too long,
The Gypo’s weren’t the ones to stand and fight,
They ran in all directions and sang a different song,
When they tangled with the men called Lily White…
In the middle of this action we
lost one of the best,
We didn’t get the word till late that night,
That Sergeant Freddy Copson had been shot and laid to rest,
And we buried yet another Lily White…
Young Johnny manned the road block,
surrounded by barbed wire,
He was a Yorkshire lad and very bright,
It was early in the morning when so called ‘friendly fire’,
Ended dreams of home for that young Lily White…
I’m getting on in years now
and I’ve covered a wide range,
And can honestly say that life has been alright,
If I had it all to do again there’s nothing I would change,
Specially the time I was a serving Lily White…
And when the final bugle calls
and the Grim Reaper gives the nod,
I’ll salute and turn smartly to my right,
I’ll check that I’m well turned out then I’ll go to meet
my God,
A better man for having been a Lily White…