While I was staying at the Gurkha Officer’s Mess in Brunei I came across an article in an old Officer’s Association Newsletter. Written by the Chief Recruiting Officer for British Gurkhas in the early 1950’s, the piece for me encapsulated the affection and regard which still pervades at all levels for the Gurkha soldier who has served the British Crown for so many years.

“Yet I would say that whatever of new invention comes to complicate existence for the Riflemen now and in the future, you need have no misgivings as to the spirit in which he will set about his task. The old traditions will persist and his soldierly qualities will prove equal to every demand. His cheerfulness in good times and bad, simplicity and straightforwardness, vigour and activity, courage and endurance, quick response to sympathy and fair dealing, and ready acceptance of an ideal for which to work, all will see him through. None who has known him but has felt a very genuine affection for the sturdy little man from the hills, and those to whom he has given his confidence, he has never failed.”