The regiment was extremely strict on the standard measurements of the flash. When new-army battalions were formed and rumours came to Wrexham that in, I think, the Eighteenth Battalion officers were wearing flashes nearly down to their waists, there was great consternation. The adjutant sent off the youngest subaltern on a special mission to the camp of the Eighteenth Battalion, the colonel of which was not a Royal Welch Fusilier, but a loan from one of the Yorkshire regiments. He was to present himself at the Battalion Orderly Room with a large pair of shears. The new-army battalions were as anxious to be regimental as the line battalions. It once happened in France that a major of the Royal Fusiliers entered the mess of the Nineteenth (Bantam) Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He greeted the mess with ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ and called for a drink from the mess sergeant. After he had talked for a bit he asked the senior officer present: ‘Do you know why I ordered that drink from the mess sergeant?’ The Welch Fusilier said: ‘Yes, you wanted to see if we remembered about Albuhera.’ The Royal Fusilier answered: ‘Well, our mess is just along behind that wood there. We haven’t forgotten either.’ After Albuhera the few survivors of the Royal Welch Fusiliers and the Royal Fusiliers had messed together on the captured hill. It was then decided that henceforth and for ever the officers of each regiment were honorary members of the other’s mess, and the N.C.O.’s the same. Perhaps the most legendary item was Thomas Atkins. He was a private soldier in the First Battalion who had served under Wellington in the Peninsular War. It is said that when, many years later, Wellington at the War Office was asked to approve a specimen form for military attestation, he had ordered it to be amended from: ‘I, Private John Doe of the blank regiment, do hereby, etc.,’ to ‘I, Private Thomas Atkins of the Twenty-third Foot, do hereby, etc.’ And now I am going to spoil the story, because I cannot for the life of me remember what British grenadierish conduct it was that made Wellington remember. And so here ends my very creditable (after eleven years) lyrical passage.