FORMER members of an Army battalion gathered to mark the 50th anniversary of the branch being reformed for the fourth time.

More than 200 members and guests of the 300-member 2nd Battalion of The Green Howards Association, which has its headquarters in Richmond, North Yorkshire, joined in the reunion on Saturday.

The battalion reformed in April 1952 and most of those who served among its ranks from 1952 to 1956, in Cyprus and Suez, were National Servicemen, now in their 60s and 70s.

Guests at the reunion lunch in the Blackwell Grange Hotel, Darlington, included Green Howards including the former Chief of the Defence Staff, Field Marshal Lord Inge.

Visitors travelled from all over the country, as well as from Canada and Cyprus.

Grace was said by the former Bishop of Selby, the Right Reverend Clifford Barker, who served with the 2nd Battalion during the Second World War.

The battalion was first raised in 1689 to fight for King William III in Ireland and in Flanders and was disbanded in 1698, before being briefly revived in the 18th Century to take part in the Seven Years' War.

It reformed for a third time in 1858 and served much of the second half of that century in India. It saw action in France and Belgium during the First World War, before being stationed in Ireland from 1919 to 1925.

Between then and its disbanding in 1948, it travelled the globe before the Second World War took it to Burma to fight the Japanese.

Following the latest reform and Suez and Cyprus duties, the battalion was put into "suspended animation", allowing it to be reconstituted if required, rather than being disbanded again.