CATECHISING THE SENTRY

Evening Post, Issue 28, 1 August 1936, Page 27

CATECHISING THE SENTRY

Watching the sentries outside Buckingham Palace and St. James's is always a popular occupation on Bank holidays in London. , Last Whit Monday, says a contributor to the London "Daily i Telegraph," several inexperienced sentries had embarrassingly large audiences for the catechisms they are put through at the end of their spell of duty.-

Whea the officer in charge of the relieving party finds that a gentry is new to the job he asks him a series of questions about the, regulations that hang on each of the palace sentry boxes. I passed through Marlborough Gate on the Bank holiday when the sentry there was being,questioned. He answered all the questions except one. He did not know the name of his post. The reply he should have given was, 'The Levee Entrance, St. James's Palace." -.■' '.- .' - ■ . ■■

The regulations each sentry has to

learn by heart tell him he must present arms only "to the Sovereign, members of British and foreign Royali families, heads of foreign States, the King's Life Guard, the King's Guard, and armed corps." He must "slope arms and salute all officers and armed parties." . His other duties include preventing "any person from getting or throwing anything over the walls" of the gardens of St. James's Palace and Marlborough House.

The sentry's life is a particularly unhappy one when passers-by ask him questions. I have seen a Life Guardsman on duty in Whitehall trying to maintain his dignity when Americans demanded to know "when the King is coming out," and then took his photograph. The regulations are not particularly helpful. They lay down that "reasonable questions may be answered in a low voice." But the onus of deciding what questions are reasonable rests with the sentry.