John Edmondson writes:

On the back row, all on his own is our Trained Soldier-Gough, looking to my aged eyes as a very young TS, and next to him on his right our PT instructor, who rumour has it that he was the heavyweight boxing champion of the British and Commonwealth Armies. He was called Sexton and came from Manchester, though I cannot vouch for the correctness of the boxing information. Immediately in front of Sexton is  Cpl Ferrars, in charge of  the squad, and immediately in front of him is Joe Brown from Urmston, Manchester. I’m sitting behind Joe Brown and on Cpl. Ferrars right, whilst next to Joe is Harold Beckwith who came from Rochdale. Behind me is Sid Bevan who was severely wounded in Normandy whilst serving with the 3rd Battalion and died from his woundsabout three years ago. In the same row fourth from the end on the right- hand side is Mark  Moores. He eventually joined the 3rd Battn, and was killed at Anzio in Italy, and is now buried in Rome. He was my Mum's Insurance Agent

On the same row as Cpl Ferrars but two places to his left is another Brown, but all I know about him was that he came from Manchester, and that his father was a dentist. Three other people I remember, the tall man on the back row, at the end on the left side as you look at it was called Percival. He was sent home with feet problems. Next to him was another Mancunian called Eddie Roscoe, whilst next to Harold Beckwith away from Joe Brown is a Welshman - Griffith Griffiths who, in my opinion, should never have been in the Irish Guards. He came from working in a slate quarry in North Wales, and could hardly speak a word of English , and the dialect of the Irish contingent left him completely baffled, so much so that we used to sandwich him in the middle rank on parade, so that we could whisper the commands to him.
   But,  Griffith was a smashing chap, and eventually got sent home to Wales to carry on making the slates which were used to replace roofs damaged in the blitz.