It is with extreme sadness
that we have to report that ex Bugler Bert Statton DCLI/SCLI
has answered the final bugle call.
Bert passed away on the evening of June 4th 2009. Service
is to be held at St Andrews Parish Church, Stratton nr Bude,
on Wed June 10th at 1430hrs.
Bert has been unwell for some time and his passing was
foreshadowed, its coming however has hit his Bugler comrades
greatly.
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Bugler Bert Statton
Truly Soldiers, Soldier
RIP
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Gib 1961
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Reunion 2008
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In a week in which thousands of our countrymen remember
the sacrifice of those who went before us, a rather smaller
but nevertheless equally saddened group of old comrades
mourn the passing of one of their own.
Bugler (Bert) Statton, who joined the newly formed Somerset
and Cornwall Light Infantry in 1960 served with distinction
throughout the world and was in every sense a soldiers,
soldier.
As a Bugler, Bert was one of what many considered an elite
group of men, men who under the stern leadership of Bugle
Major’s Smith and Hill worked tirelessly to present
a pristine and highly professional face of the Regiment
to an international audience.
From the rarefied atmosphere of NATO Headquarters in Paris,
to the Olympic Stadium in Berlin before a hundred thousand
spectators, Bert along with his Bugle Platoon colleagues
thrilled audiences with his precise military skills and
Bugling prowess. With the rest of us he wore lines in the
tarmac square at Osnabruck so much drill and Bugle practice
did he undertakes before the Paris trip.
In those short periods when he wasn’t marching up
and down or practicing his Bugling skill he served the Regiment
well in the sport arena by his membership of The Battalion
Tug-of-War Team, a team which sweep all before it in what
was then known as BOAR.
Of course life in the Regiment was not all work, the social
element of any soldiers life is extremely important as a
bonding mechanism, and in that mechanism Bert was a significant
gog wheel, he was always the one who however much “falling
over water” he consumed remained sober, certainly
sober enough to get the less capable among us back to barracks
and for some inexplicable reason he always had twenty marks
in his pocket to help out his less thrifty mates.
As with those young men of today serving their nation in
hostile surroundings across the world Bert saw his fair
share of the rigours of anti terrorism during the bloody
conflict in Aden where Bert adopted the other face of the
Regimental Bugler by switching to being a very effective
infantryman.
Throughout those sometimes dark days on active service when
we lost colleagues to the bomb or gunshot, Bert was always
there to extend the arm of comfort in our hour of grief,
for those caring actions we all thank him in our quite moments.
We of the military family know that Bert will have answered
the final Bugle call with fortitude and strength, the characteristics
which set him apart as a true “Soldiers, Soldier,
we are comforted in our grief to know that the Bugle Platoon
up there will be strengthened by his arrival.
Bert will be sadly missed by all who knew him, both in his
military and civilian roles; his passing has left a great
hole in the hearts of his Regimental colleagues and also
in the hearts of his family to whom Bert’s Regimental
family extend their deepest sympathy and condolences at
this time of great sadness.
John Pover
June 6th 2009
Tributes
