After almost half a century of corresponding, Bermudian senior citizen Lynette Rice was this week reunited with two penpals who were stationed here with the British Army in the 1950s.

Gerry Hunkin and Terry Dyer from St. Austell, Cornwall, were both stationed in Bermuda with the 32nd Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry in 1955. This week they returned to Bermuda for the first time with their families for a special trip down memory lane.reporter Jessie Moniz and photographer Meredith Andrews met up with Mr. Hunkin and Mr. Dyer and their wives at the Harmony Club in Paget during their reunion with Miss Rice.

Miss Rice met Mr. Hunkin and Mr. Dyer at a dance in the 1950s, and corresponded with Mr. Hunkin for many years, even visiting him in the 1960s with her mother, Alice.

?We were a county regiment,? said Mr. Dyer. ?The majority of us were from Cornwall. Most of the Cornish men came to Bermuda and were in the A company.?

Mr. Dyer came to Bermuda in June,1955 and Mr. Hunkin a month later. Although they lived near each other, they did not know each other until they met in Bermuda.

?In those days we had to join,? said Mr. Hunkin. ?People of a certain age were conscripted for two years. Some people resented it. Terry and I enjoyed it. To decide where you would go they mostly just picked your name out of a hat.?

They were stationed in Bermuda during the height of the blight that killed off most of Bermuda?s cedar trees.

?It was very brown when we arrived here because all of the trees,? said Mr. Dyer. ?All the trees had a disease. There was a lovely smell in the air though, from the cedar. It is much greener now than what it was when I was here.?

?In 1955 the first thing you noticed as you were driving was the skeletons of trees besides the road,? said Mr. Hunkin.

Unlike other Regiments stationed in Bermuda, the 32nd Cornwall Light Infantry never had a mascot.

?That was because when we were on parade we marched too fast for anything to keep up,? said Mr. Hunkin with a laugh. ?We were the light infantry which meant we were the fastest marchers in the British army.

?Our duties were ceremonial parades. Every Wednesday we would do a ceremonial march near the Secretariat building just in case the governor came near when they had meetings. We would also do weapon training.?

Miss Rice said it was a beautiful sight to see the soldiers marching by in their uniforms.

?Friday was route march day,? said Mr. Hunkin. ?We would go nine or ten miles and then come back again.

?We would go out past Flatts and come back by a different route. We had three platoons. Each platoon went a different way on these little marches. There would be about 25 of us. We went wherever the sergeant said. We followed them around. Apart from that there was a certain amount of training every morning. Most afternoons after the 2 p.m. parade we would go for a swim or a run at the beach. There would be cricket and football. There was more football and relaxation in the afternoon unless you were on guard duty.?

Their relaxation also sometimes involved dances with the local girls. Most of the men stationed in Bermuda were only 18 or 19 years old.

?They use to have dances on Reid Street at a place called the Armoury,? Miss Rice said. ?The guys use to come around and pick up all the girls on a Saturday night.?

They met Miss Rice at one particular dance.

?The girls stayed with Lynette overnight because it was too late for them to go home,? said Mr. Hunkin. ?The next day, we were invited down to Lynette?s mom?s bungalow for a meal. ?Don?t ask me why, but we kept in contact for about 49 years. Lynette and her mother came and visited us in England in 1962. Her name was Alice Rice.?

Mr. Hunkin actually met his wife Morag in Bermuda while she was here on vacation. When he returned to England after his service he followed her to London where she worked as a nurse. He was a police officer in London for many years.

Mr. Dyer became a train engine driver.

?I started off as a fire engine man,? said Mr. Dyer. ?I don?t think I was influenced by my work in the Regiment. I was already in the railway when I went into the army. It was one of the agreements. Your former employer had to take you back, at least for six months, when you finished your service.?

When Mr. Hunkin and Mr. Dyer came to Bermuda the first time, the Korean War had just ended, and Bermuda was considered a cushy place to be stationed.

?There was the Suez Crisis,? said Mr. Hunkin. ?If that had continued our regiment would have gone there but it all fizzled out after a short period.?

Mr. Hunkin was only five years old when the Second World War started and 11 when it finished. He remembered the day that the war ended in Europe pretty clearly.

?The headmaster at the school had served in the First World War,? he said. ?When the Second World War was over we had a day?s celebration within the town. There was no transport in those days to go anywhere else. You celebrated in your own villages. There were tea parties and that sort of thing.?

Today, Mr. Dyer is the secretary of the Light Infantry Association for his area of Cornwall.

?They have a lot of parades going on throughout the summer,? he said. ?There is a big parade down our way. It will all be tied up with the British legions, all the British legions standards will be there.?

Through his work with the association, Mr. Dyer keeps in contact with many of the men from Cornwall who were stationed in Bermuda and other places. It was through the association that he met up with his old friend Mr. Hunkin again after many years of being in different parts of England.

?We got together 12 months ago and Terry said to me, would you ever go back to Bermuda?? said Mr. Hunkin. ?I have always said if ever I come into lots of money I will come to Bermuda. I told Terry that I would like to go back before the end of my days. Then my wife and I saw an advertisement for Bermuda put out by the Bermuda Tourist Board. I rang them up and they sent me bits and pieces.?

Mr. Hunkin and his wife and Mr. Dyer and his wife, Marion, have been planning the trip for over a year.

?We have thoroughly enjoyed it,? he said.

While in Bermuda the two families visited Prospect, and tried to pick out old military buildings. They also went to Warwick Camp and were given an impromptu tour.

?The Bermuda Regiment had a training session on Saturday,? Mr. Hunkin said. ?We were passed on to a regimental sergeant major and we explained to him why we were there. He called over a private. He very kindly showed us around the camp. It was lovely.

?There were some parts of the camp that Terry and I recognised. There were still two or three of the same buildings there. It is practically the same, but there were extra buildings. The armoury was in the same place as it was 50 years ago. The water catchment at the top was still there.?

Mr. Hunkin and his wife have four children, six grandchildren and one great grandchild who was expected during their stay in Bermuda.

Mr. Dyer has eight stepchildren who spoil him rotten, according to his wife.