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AEO Past & Present Dinner Night

Officers' Mess

21 March 2024

REME Reunion 2024

The Delta Hotel by Marriot, Warwick

19th - 21st April 2024

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Harris MM WOs' and Sgts' Mess

25 April 2024

Corps Dinner Night

HQ Officers' Mess

16 May 2024

REME Junior Officers' Dinner Night

HQ Officers' Mess

13 June 2024

Last month the Corps Welfare Warrant Officer, WO2 (CSM) Kelvin Redshaw and Maj (Retd) Geordie Wright-Rivers had the immense pleasure of visiting Edmund Joynson at his home in Ashford on the occasion of his 102nd birthday!  We were delighted to be able to provide Edmund with the most recent editions of the Craftsman magazine and, more importantly, to hand him the Corps birthday card delivered with sincere best wishes and gratitude of the whole REME Family.

Edmund spent the war years in North Africa as an Aircraft Technician with the Royal Airforce, before joining the Auxiliary Service as an engineer working with the Corps from 1949.  He went on to spend many years with the Corps in places such as Bordon and Woolwich before settling in Ashford where he trained and mentored many of Ashford Workshop’s apprentices over the years.  He became something of a Technical Author, overseeing much of the transition from EMERs to AESPs, being particularly influential during the early days developing manuals and documentation for the Chieftain Main Battle Tank.

During his time at Ashford, Edmund regularly led the REME Display Team at the Royal Tournament in Earl’s Court, where teams would compete to reassemble a complete Jeep with winning teams achieving remarkable times as quick as 6 minutes!  In 1958, when the picture below was taken, Edmund impressed the crowds by designing a remote-control system to enable the reassembled Jeep to perform a lap of honour without a driver! (I wonder if this where Amazon got the idea from?).

The entire Corps of REME is grateful to Edmund for his many years of dedicated service and assistance to the Corps and we are very proud to have him as part of our REME Family.

And how many other REME Family centenarians do we have out there?  If you are, or you know anyone who is, then please get in touch – we would love to hear from you all!

Scribe: Maj (Retd) Geordie Wright-Rivers REME Association

This article will appear in the April 2023 issue of The Craftsman

Contact Major (Retired) Geordie Wright-Rivers at association@remecharity.org or call 07590848766.

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