The Green Howards Friends Website,

The following Obituaries for surnames beginning with "G" have appeared in the Green Howards "Gazette", or have been notified to the Green Howards.

Ken Gomersall

The following was published in the April 2008 edition of "The Green Howard"

Tom Heron, Hon Sec 2nd Battalion Branch GHA writes:

Ken died on 27th November 2007 and his funeral took place on 5 December at Dewsbury Crematorium. He served between May 1952 and May 1955 in Egypt and Cyprus with the 2nd Battalion The Green Howards as a Corporal in the Corps of Drums and latterly in C Company. Proficient with the bugle, he gained the ‘Silver Bugle’, thus being the Commanding Officer’s personal bugler.

Arthur Goodwin

Miss J L Baker (daughter) writes :

My father, Arthur Goodwin, was born in Stepney on 16th March 1920 and worked as a shop assistant before joining 6th Battalion, The Green Howards on 13th June 1940. During his service with The Green Howards he took part in the D-Day Landings in Normandy. He transferred to the Reserves on 16th August 1946 and was a foreman at Thomas Smith & Sons, Paint Manufacturers for a number of years.

About four years ago my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer which was initially controlled with drugs. Unfortunately, the cancer spread to his bones and then his liver. This was too much for him to cope with and he was hospitalised in August, he slipped into a coma on 14th September and died on Thursday 15th September 2005.

Thank you to Mr Ken McGrath of London Branch GHA for sending a wreath to the funeral service which took place at Romford Cemetery, Essex on 27th September 2005.

Mrs Desmond Gordon

Lieutenant Colonel N D Mclntosh MBE writes:

A service for the life of Sybil Gordon was held in the small English village church of St Mary's, Greywell, which nestles in the corner of a sunny meadow in Hampshire, on a superb early Autumn day - on Friday 19th September. It was a very fine service, conducted by an ex-army Chaplain, Reverend Hancock, an old family friend, befitting the memory of such a splendid wife, mother, grandmother and great grandmother and a valued friend to hundreds.

There were three readings in the service; the first read by son Adrian Gordon was 'Do not stand at my grave and weep'; the second by grandson Jamie Railton was from Revelations Chapter XXI vv 107 and the final one was from 'The Glory of the Garden' by Rudyard Kipling and great granddaughter, Annabelle Powell, was the reader.

An apposite and amusing Address was given by Field Marshal The Lord Inge.

After the service a very jolly 'tea' party was held in the Village Hall which was much enjoyed by all who attended. Many of Sybil's local friends were there in addition to the following from the Regimental family: Field Marshal and Lady Inge, Brigadier Andrew Farquhar represented the Colonel of the Regiment who was on a Battlefield Tour of the Crimea; Mrs John Powell, Brigadier and Mrs Maurice Atherton, Colonel Barrie Johnson, Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs Neil Mclntosh, Major and Mrs Brian Metcaife and Captain and Mrs lan Homersham.

Major D Goulds

Major Roger Chapman MBE writes :

Major Dennis Goulds, who served with both the 1st and 2nd Battalions after being commissioned into the Regiment from the Army Physical Training Corps in 1952, died suddenly in Derby on 27th May 2005, aged 79 years. His Requiem Mass for the repose of the soul was held at the Church of Our Lady of Appleby on 9th June 2005.

Dennis Goulds was born in Dunton Green, Kent, the youngest of seven children, in 1926. He joined the Army during the Second World War in 1943 and, because of his physical fitness and sporting ability, was posted to the APTC. He was immediately made an NCO and was attached to the Parachute Regiment. By the end of the war, he was proud to be the youngest sergeant in the army.

He married Eileen in 1947, who sadly died last year after 57 years of marriage. They were then posted to Pirbright and Camden Town, before they moved with their three daughters to Barnard Castle where Dennis gained a commission in the newly re-embodied 2nd Battalion. He served in Suez, Egypt and Cyprus with them, where his sporting abilities assisted the Battalion to win most of the major sporting trophies in the Middle East. He was an army boxing champion as well as playing rugby for the British Army against the New Zealand All Blacks.

On the disbandment of the 2nd Battalion in 1956, he was posted to the 1st Battalion and moved with them to Hong Kong where he gained a reputation as the Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the Colony. He also was instrumental in the Battalion excelling at rugby, boxing, athletics, basketball and tennis. He continued to bring his own brand of ebullient enthusiasm to the sporting field in Iserlohn in West Germany and Tripoli in Libya.

In 1964, he was appointed Chief Instructor at the Army PT School in Aldershot - it was a job he loved - at which he excelled to the extent that he was later given an extension. His last years in the Army were as the Chief Range Officer, first at Queen Elizabeth Barracks, Strensall near York and then head of the large range complex at Warcop on the Cumbrian/Yorkshire border. It was a task which suited him; an outdoor job in beautiful country amongst people who appreciated his warm personality and generosity of spirit on his retirement. He made his home close to Appleby, where he joined Probus and continued to play and coach squash into his mid-70s.

Both Dennis and Eileen will be remembered by all Green Howards as a great family team, almost inseparable and always generous to a fault. He was a big man in every way whose usual action when dealing with military malcontents, was to close his right fist menacingly and say: "So what do you want, mush - hospital or cemetery?" Anything was better than getting in the boxing ring with Major Dennis Goulds, a former heavyweight boxing champion of the Army.

Captain lan Homersham writes:

Many would have been surprised to learn on his death that Dennis was 79. He was a remarkably fit and strong man who dominated gymnasium and playing field. It showed in his appearance when year after year he never changed and remained clear-eyed, laughing and full of life with not a grey hair to be seen.

In Hong Kong on the rugby field he was a fearsome stand-off half who charged lake a maddened bull, scattering the opposition whilst Tony Warrington on the wing, me in the centre. Nick Mander in the pack, Tom Morkill and others watched in admiration. In 1958 as boxing officer he led the Battalion team to victory in the FARELF and MELF championships. He was as good in the corner as he was in the ring where he boxed as a light heavyweight although only 5ft. 9ins.

Germany followed where one recalls a jovial Dennis pint in hand with Cliff Clifford and Phil Taylor sharpening up younger members of the mess, whilst under the watchful and loving eye of Eileen, his three daughters becoming more beautiful by the day.

We became firm friends in Aldershot in the mid-sixties when he was the Chief Instructor, a job for which he was well- qualified having become a Sergeant instructor in the Corps at the age of twenty, and I one of his two officer instructors at the Army School of Physical Training. He was much admired and liked in the APTC. He was 'mens sana in corpore sano'. Being two Green Howards in a sea of crossed swords and striped jerseys created a bond and close friendship which lasted until his sad death in May.

Dennis seldom if ever admitted to being downhearted but when I spoke to him shortly before his death he said, his voice as forceful and vibrant as ever, that he was fed up. He was having to live on the first floor of his house because the ground floor had become unusable due to the River Eden flooding and, of course, he no longer had Eileen.