Maj. Ted Macey

This memory of Ted was sent in by.....
23131878 Corporal Bone R.K. National Service April 1955-57 (Photo above)

It is unusual for another rank to have been friends with an officer, let alone a Commanding Officer.

It was because their were only two soldiers in the Orderly room, the chief clerk Staff Sergeant Mills and myself and we came in contact often in our duties.
Ted was also well liked by others in the camp as he provided us with a canoe club on Blakang Mati Island (then a jungle clad mostly military island) (now Sentosa) and photographic processing facilities.

He also took some great photos of sunsets in Singapore and I would love to see those again.

When off duty and down at the beach we saw him sitting there after a swim and as we lads passed we said "hello Ted" very daring of us I must say. He replied "hello lads are you enjoying yourselves?"

One night Ted came to our NAAFi and on the stage gave us all a demonstration of his hand gun shooting skills.
He also encouraged boxing and the night I arrived in the camp at 30 Batallion RAOC 3 BOD many of us went down to the city to a boxing match by lorry.

I am replying to a relative of his and sending a copy of what I am typing and will send him a photo in due course.

The photo shows Ted at our orderly room Christmas party 1956 and I am the corporal in the photo.

I arrived at the camp in February 1956 and Ted Macey was the CO then and I know he bore the rank of Major all the time I was there. A Lt Col arrived a few months later to become CO and Ted would have been second in command and I don't think Ted took to him and he was not there more than a week or so...
That last para is my impression only, I do think that the Lt Col did not enjoy good health though.

Camp life was wonderful at 30 Batt. Very few parades indeed. Even rarer barrack room inspections, despite this everyone seemed extremely well behaved. I only remember one fight in the year I was there.

I did learn that Ted disappeared in Cyprus and that was through a newspaper and I remember feeling very sad about it at the time.

During the last three or four years I have tried to search the Internet and it was only in the last month or so that I found Ted Macey on searching yet again and I was delighted to see the lovely photo.

Yes Ted was a tubby man with a very ruddy face and a lovely smile. I was so surprised to find later that he would have only been 38 when I served under him.
After I had been at the camp for a month or so Ted came into the office and said a money transfer has arrived for you from a member of you family, £20 for you to buy a camera. "get the Malay soldier driver to bring my jeep around and we will go down to the city to get you a nice camera Corporal Bone." We went to Lien Wah and bought an Aires Three 35mm single lens reflex which I used until I traded it for my first cine camera at the time of my wedding in 1959.

I was interested to learn that Ted must have been brought up very near where my father was born. Father was born and lived at Kings Cross.

I did wonder whether he might have had a relative who taught at my old boarding school at Bisley in Surrey.