MY sister Janet, who lives in Chandler’s Ford, showed me a copy of a recent edition of the Echo, which included an article on the Boer War.

My grandfather served in the Army Medical Corps in the Boer War in South Africa as a corporal medical orderly. On his return, he was stationed at Netley Hospital.

I remember in 1944 seeing ambulance trains alongside the platform at Southampton terminus station awaiting wounded soldiers for onward journey, presumably to Netley.

In 1948, I was in the Royal Army Medical Corps, stationed at the HQ Boyce Barracks at Church Crookham near Aldershot, when Queen Elizabeth (the present Queen’s mother) visited the barracks to rename it Queen Elizabeth Barracks. The Queen met 12 Boer War veterans, of which my grandfather was one. He tried to find me, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack and we did not meet.

In the mid-1960s when Netley Hospital was being demolished, I purchased the cast iron radiators that were situated in the maid corridor said to be a quarter mile lone for the DIY store which I coowned in Fair Oak.

The title Royal was conferred on the corps after the First World War. I hope to visit the museum at Netley shortly to give my Services Handbook dated 1944 and the 1912 version.

I live in Somerset, but I shall always be a Hampshire Hog. In the summer I look for Hampshire cricket scores, and in the winter look for the Saints’ results.

NORMAN LOVERIDGE (83), Chard.