Chelsea Pensioners open their doors

16/04/2007

For the first time in its 300 year history, The Royal Hospital Chelsea opened its doors to television cameras as part of a documentary series of eight television programmes entitled ‘Once a Soldier’. The deeply moving episodes have already begun - so dont miss the subsequent ones.

Filmed during 2006, the series shows the reality of life as a Chelsea Pensioner, from choosing to live in such a unique retirement home to meeting the Queen, with each episode capturing the essence of our old soldiers' final posting.

“The Royal Hospital Chelsea is a much loved national institution - but most people have only a vague idea of what it really means to be a Chelsea Pensioner,” says General the Lord Walker GCB CMG CBE.  Amanda Richardson, producer of the BBC series added: “We wanted to offer viewers the opportunity to gain an honest insight into life at The Hospital."  

The programmes are being broadcast to coincide with the Chelsea Pensioners’ Appeal to raise money towards their £35m target to fund urgently needed refurbishments at The Royal Hospital by 2008. As a non Government organisation, the Hospital relies on private funding for building projects and hopes the series will help encourage donations.
 
Director of the Appeal, Roy Ratazzi said: “Future Pensioners, many of whom are today’s soldiers, will look to us to give them a fitting home in their twilight years of life.  We hope that these programmes will educate people on what it means to be a Chelsea Pensioner and how important it is to support these Army veterans, who are both a symbol and living memorial to those who have given their lives in service to our Nation.”

The series on BBC4 is on Thursdays from 8.30 - 9pm:

The episode outines are:
 
5 April - ‘Always a Soldier’

101 year old Bill Swingler is the oldest Chelsea Pensioner.  Each new pensioner has to find their own way of fitting back into an army way of life at the Royal Hospital Chelsea.  After 58 years of marriage, recently widowed 79-year old Len Tough is brought to The Royal Hospital by his two daughters for a four day trial. Len will discover if he is to be accepted into the ranks of the men in scarlet and 101 year old Bill reveals the secret of his long life.
 
12 April - ‘New Boys’

Every year fifty old soldiers die at The Royal Hospital Chelsea, making room for new men to join the ranks of the Chelsea Pensioners.  90-year old Wally Hilling, a former Japanese Prisoner of War and Bill Brierley aged 76 leave family, friends and homes to live instead in a 9’ square window-less berth and become uniform wearing Chelsea Pensioners.  How will they handle the transition from civvy to new recruit for the first time in half a century?
 
19 April - 'On Parade'

All leave is cancelled as all 300 Chelsea Pensioners at The Royal Hospital Chelsea are ordered to the parade ground for one very special day when Her Majesty the Queen takes the salute on Founders Day.  But in the hottest June since records began how will the massed ranks of the pensioners cope?
 
26 April - ‘Comrades in Arms'
Frank Chambers aged 90 and Joe Britton aged 95, first became mates as Royal Fusiliers in India in 1936 - then lost touch.  After nearly seventy years they meet again as Chelsea Pensioners and rekindle their friendship.  Dougie Huxley aged 86 and Don Smith met on their first day as new recruits at The Royal Hospital Chelsea and became inseparable.  Is their past as soldiers the reason their bonds of friendship are so strong? 
 
3 May - ‘Soldiering On'

The Royal Hospital Chelsea needs to raise serious money to pay for maintaining it’s Grade 1 listed building and construction of a new £20 million infirmary.  The Hospital becomes the backdrop to a Bollywood movie and a period drama, but the old soldiers also need to rely on friends in high places to fund a long-term survival plan.  Increasingly infirm Chelsea Pensioner ‘Windy’ Gale needs nursing care and is moving berth and clearing out 60 years of memories.
 
10 May - ‘Ladies in Waiting'

Women are coming to The Royal Hospital Chelsea.  It’s a case of when, not if.  But is this all male bastion prepared for the first women in scarlet?  Ex-Regimental Sergeant Major Agnes Doig (aged 75), Second World War girl-gunner Barbara Wetherall (aged 81) and Warrant Officer Winifred Phillips (aged 80) visit - and put the Hospital and the men through their paces to see if life at The Royal Hospital Chelsea could be for them.
 
17 May - 'Not Forgotten'

At The Royal Hospital Chelsea, Armistice Day approaches.  Memories of the wars the men fought remain vivid and painful.  To honour their fallen comrades a dozen Chelsea Pensioners hope to be passed fit enough to walk down the steps of the Royal Albert Hall’s Festival of Remembrance and to march past the Cenotaph.  But at the Hospital, the poppy collection box is stolen, the culprit is caught on CCTV.  If they catch him what style of justice will he receive at the hands of the old soldiers?
 
24 May - ‘Changing the Guard’

The Royal Hospital Chelsea has been told it needs to shape up for the 21st Century.
But how do a group of old soldiers whose average age is 83, cope with the changes?  From cyber cafes and a gym, to revolutionary discussions about whether to have en-suite bathrooms in the Grade 1 listed berths, the pensioners make clear their views to the modernising new top brass.  Arnhem veteran Vic Massingham aged 81 is unfazed by the upheaval, determined only to retain his bowls club crown.