Obituary (3) – April 2015 Jorunal
GILLARDFormer8644D SergeantandIn-Pensioner Leonard Charles Gillard,passed away peacefully as a patient of the Margaret Thatcher Infirmary at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, on the 8th January 2015, just twenty-two days before his 94th Birthday. He had been ill for a long time. Len saw nearly twenty-three years of varied service between 1937 and 1967 with both the ‘Terriers’ and the Regular Army and was ‘badged’ variously Royal Regiment of Artillery, Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) and RMP.
Born in 1921, in London, Len first joined the Territorial Army (TA) Royal Artillery (RA), just 16 years old, on 3rd February 1937, and served with 366/92 Field Regiment RA. He was embodied into the Regular Army on the outbreak of War serving with various ‘gunner’ units until his posting in 1941, to Egypt to join 188/67 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment RA, based near Cairo. In 1942, the Regiment was moved to Calcutta in India and was then deployed forward to Assam and finally into Burma. In 1945, he was posted to 50 Reserve Regiment RA stationed in Bad Oyenhausen in the British Occupied Zone of Germany, remaining there until he was returned to Woolwich to be demobbed.
In 1947, Len moved to Toronto, Canada where he worked in a supermarket; quite a novelty for a ‘Brit’ as only 10 small ‘super market’ type storesthen existed in the whole of the UK, but he returned to Englandshortly thereafter and immediately rejoined the TA, serving: for 21 months with the RASC, before moving to the RMP Volunteers for a year and then back to the RASC for a further two.
In 1957, Len returned to RMP and completed nearly 10 years service with the TA earning the moniker of ‘Len the Pen’along the way supposedly owing to his superior clerical skills,which he deployed when serving with Brighton Detachment, 253 Provost Company (Volunteers). In civilian life his employment was as varied as his Army career and included coach driver, security officer, postman and service with the Corps of Commissionaires.
After his wife died in 2006, Len became very lonely so in 2009, he applied to enter the Royal Hospital, achieving coveted In-Pension status in July 2010. He took a year’s break, becoming an ‘Out-Pensioner’, in July 2012, but then re-entered in July 2013. At the time of his death Len was the President of East Sussex Branch RMPA and he was also a member in good standing of both London and North America Branches.
His funeral was held in a packed Chapel at theMargaret Thatcher Infirmary on 29th January, with his son David as the principal mourner and Colonel John Baber MBE, National Chairman RMPA,and WO1 (CRSM) Summerhayes representingthe Association and the Corps respectively. The Standards from London and Kent Branches, together with a phalanx of red-jacketed comrade In-Pensioners andscarlet-bereted RMP veterans filled all 70 plus seats. With Len’s death, the RMP and WRAC (Provost) cohort at Chelsea is reduced to 10.
The Regimental Secretary.