Sir Paul Newall - Once a Fusilier....

[Postwarden]

I have learned belatedly of the death at the beginning of August of Sir Paul Newall, 666th Lord Mayor of London.

In 1970 when I joined C (City of London) Company, 5th (Volunteer) Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (in the salubrious south west London suburb of Balham) Major Newall was my company commander. As a lowly Fusilier I only saw him from a distance but often heard older Fusiliers referring to him as "God".

In the 1980s Colonel Newall as he had become was Chairman of Trustees of the Fusilier Volunteers Museum which I helped set up in the Balham Drill Hall to record the long history of a unit whose ancestors included the 1st and 2nd London Regiments and the 8th and 9th Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers. Colonel Newall was a great supporter of the museum during his chairmanship.

Living up to the regiment's maxim, "Once a Fusilier, always a Fusilier', having done his National service with The Royal Fusiliers, he was later honorary colonel of the London Regiment and chairman of the London TAVRA.

In later years I took part with C Company in the Annual Lord Mayor's show where the then Alderman Newall would smile and nod as I marched past with my eyes left.

The full details of Sir Paul's life can be found in his Daily Telegraph obituary and are considerably more detailed than this simple, personal tribute to an officer and a gentleman.

Jon