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Joe Hubble

Military Service & Rank: 28 years in the Black Watch, 1 year as Quatermaster at St Lawrence College in Kent

Yeoman at the Tower Since: 1979

Interests & Hobbies: Gardening, Photography, Vice President & Standard Bearer for the St George's, Hanover Square branch of the British Legion.

Yeoman Warder Joe Hubble's travels during his 28 years in the Black Watch regiment were as far and wide as can be imagined. As one finds out upon talking to him his army life has been filled with many adventures often placing him in the midst of active service at many of the worlds worst trouble spots. There is however one small period of time in what he describes as the most boring nine months of his life.

In his own words he explains "Well, military life often takes one here, there and everywhere for their tour's of duty and more often than not there will be more things to do than the actual time given to do them. One day, orders came through that I was being shipped out to Tobruk for a period of nine months to guard the king against assassination. Well, this seemed fairly standard and I was quite looking forward to it as I hadn't been to Tobruk before. I can honestly say though, that I have never been so bored in my entire life before or since that nine months. There was absolutely nothing to do, nothing to see and nowhere to go. The only thing we did was spend the whole duration of time playing football in the desert. Now, I know that many people reading this will be thinking that I am mad in complaining about it but the area we were stationed in was made up of literally nothing but sand. As a result of this the entire regiment just played football in the blazing heat of the desert, EVERY--- SINGLE--- DAY for the entire duration. When, after the nine months we finally received orders to leave none of us ever wanted to set our eyes on a football again or for that matter sand".

Luckily for Joe, the following years were far from boring and were actually extremely rewarding in that he was selected to go to Perth, Scotland as a training instructor for new recruits. He obviously made his mark as many of the then raw recruits have to this day kept in touch and have become good friends of his. After Perth he served in Warminster, Sterling Castle, Fort George in Inverness, Aberdeen, Mindon before returning once more to the hot sandy confines of the far east where he served in Oman, Aden and Manama to name but a few.

Whilst in Aden he turned his attention to learning to speak Arabic which obviously was very beneficial to him during his stay there. At that time he also became a keen

photographer capturing on film some pretty amazing desert sun-sets. Even now, when the opportunity arises he often picks up a camera, although as he says "Being a Yeoman Warder has seen my free time for daylight photography become very limited".

Since becoming a Yeoman Warder, Joe Hubble has on many occasions been assigned as regimental escort to Her Majesty the Queen Mother during her visits to the Black Watch. As he proudly pointed out "A highlight of this was accompanying her to Berlin for the celebration of its 700th anniversary. This coincided with the Queen mother's 50th anniversary as Colonel in Chief to the regiment of the Black Watch. I escorted her through the ranks of battalion wearing full Tudor ceremonial dress. That's something which I'm pretty sure has not been done before, at least not in our time. A few weeks later I had a lunch appointment with Her Majesty and she cheekily asked me what I had been getting up to on my own in Berlin. I have actually escorted her on several occasions since that time including the Royal Tournament."

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