Rain was soaking Exmoor, making the Yeomanry camp on Minehead's North Hill a May-time misery. Under canvas for their annual training fortnight were the Worcestershire and Oxfordshire Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. The year was 1923.
The senior Oxfordshire battery commander was a 49-year-old major. At a camp concert he was asked to make a speech. He expressed pleasure that young men were coming forward to train in readiness for any emergency that might befall their country.
But he had to tell them that the day of Yeomanry, of mounted troops, was done, and he envisaged in the next war, if one should come, 'masses of mechanised forces, the clash of tanks instead of the flash of swords, and iron steeds spouting deadly flame from their nostrils.' Such phrases came naturally to this man.
One day he would captain the nation, but his destiny was as yet far off. He had been a Member of Parliament, but now he had lost his seat. His name was Winston Spencer Churchill.
In 1923 Winston Churchill played polo on the lawns of Dunster Castle |