What Active Edge Blue Book?

40th Field Regiment R.A. Gutersloh 1979.

There is no way he is going to own up to this, not in front of the Regiment at 3am on parade on the hockey pitch... That's what I was thinking when the colonel (C.O.) demanded to know who the practical joker was.

It all started around 23:00hrs or just after, the duty clerk received a phone call from someone sounding very much like the colonel. He told the clerk to go to his office and find his Active Edge Blue Book and to have the duty driver bring it to his house.

Before I go any further, perhaps I should explain what active edge means. Active edge is a process we had in the army to call the regiment out to their war time locations in the event the balloon went up, in peace time these were dummy positions, and there were different states of readiness, and we would often get called out in the early hours of the morning.

So, the duty clerk dutifully went to the  C.O's office and he searched high and low for the blue book to no avail, he decided that he needed to call in the Regimental Orderly Seargent (ROS) as he did not want to tell the C.O. he could not find his blue book.

The ROS arrived and the duty clerk explained what the C.O. had requested, and so off they went to the colonel’s office to look again for the old man’s blue book, by now the time was around 00:30hrs. They searched and searched and could not find it, the duty clerk said to the ROS what shall we do. The ROS said let’s call in the Orderly Officer who was a young (very young) Lieutenant. The Officer turned up and the ROS explained to him what the old man wanted and so off they went again to his office to carry out yet another search, you know just to be on the safe side.

Well of course they could not find it, and the officer then turned to the sergeant and said what shall we do, the sergeant replied well Sir I think you should call the colonel and tell him that you could not find his blue book, smart move on his part. The time is now getting on to 01:30hrs and the officer plucks up the courage to call the old man.

Woken from his sleep the colonel answers his phone and the orderly officer makes his apologies and said I am sorry colonel I am unable to locate your Active Edge Blue Book and the C.O. replies what Active Edge Blue Book. The officer then apologies, saying I think I have just been had. No matter said the colonel, call the regiment in.

Active Edge was called we all got dragged out of our beds thinking we were going on exercise, kit packed we turned up in camp loaded our vehicles and then at around 03:00hrs we were marched up to the hockey pitch (which is where we would go if we were going to be told of any real time deployments) and the whole regiment waited for the old man to turn up.

His car pulled up he got out and mounted his saluting box and preceded to explain the whole story to us. Then he said, no one leaves this square until I get a name.

So, picture this, nearly 300 men on parade at 03:00 hrs. All dragged out of their beds and some just rolled in from the town having been out on the lash. Now ask yourself, would you own up?