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Ex-Isle soldier revisits Malaysia
FORMER regular soldier, now living in the Isle, has made his second return trip to Malaysia, where he and his colleagues helped build new roads and bridges almost 50 years ago.
This time he was again travelling with other former members of the 11th Independent Field Squadron Royal Engineers and all of them were featured in an extensive newspaper article praising the work of the British Army all those years ago.
The Isle man featured in the article is Tony Catherall, who is a councillor on Epworth Town Council and lives on Melwood View.
“This was my second return visit and it’s a wonderful country. Also, they’re very pro-British out there,” he said.
The first visit came about shortly after an annual reunion of former members of the Royal Engineers who served in Southeast Asia was initially launched in Doncaster four years ago.
They call themselves The Old Lags and to qualify for membership the former soldiers have to have served between 1958 and 1964.
“That way any new member is bound to know someone who was out there at the time,” said Mr Catherall, who signed up when he was just 18 and spend six years as a regular in the Army.
As he had made one return visit, the three other members of The Old Lags asked him to accompany them on their visit as he knew the ropes.
The feature on their visit appears in the English language New Sabah Times - which covers an area of the country known as North Borneo during the British colonial days.
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Weather for Epworth
Thursday 23 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 10 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 3 C to 12 C
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