Ray came from a regimental family, his grandfather having served with the Suffolk Regiment throughout the Boer Wars and afterwards, and his father having served with the Rifle Brigade in World War 1, and subsequently the Northamptonshire Regiment from 1919 until 1945 retiring as Captain QM.

Ray was born in Northampton on 10th February 1929 and on leaving school he first became an Article to a London Quantity Surveyor’s practice engaged in the construction of airfields for 305th Bomb Group 8th US Army Air Force. He joined the ACF and later worked for the LMS Railway Co. In July 1946 he enlisted in the Northamptons and was sent to the 28th Infantry Leaders Training Battalion in Holywood Northern Ireland for training. After RCB he became an Officer Cadet at the Royal Artillery OCTU at Deepcut, but due to his extreme youthfulness was returned to the Regiment to gain further experience. He thus arrived at the East Anglian Group Training Centre, Colchester in June 1947 where he was quickly promoted to Corporal and then as the youngest ever peacetime Sergeant in the Regiment in January 1948 he became an Instructor at the Army School of Chemical Warfare, later the NBC School. Shortly afterwards he was called forward to OCTU again but chose not to return.

In 1951 he was posted to 1 Essex, and then via Bury St Edmunds to Quebec Barracks, Northampton on its re-establishment as a Training Depot. Ray was then posted to 1 Northamptons in Trieste, serving with them in Austria and Wuppertal (BAOR). He moved with the Battalion to Korea as a CQMS and then to Hong Kong as a CSM where he married Pamela, a QARANC nurse.

He returned with the Battalion to the UK in 1957 where they became Trials Battalion until leaving for Aden and the Emirate of Dhala. This tour ended with the amalgamation with 1 Royal Lincolns in the UK when he was posted to Bury St Edmunds, where he became RQMS. He returned to (then) 2 R Anglian in Osnabruck for a brief period before being appointed RSM of 5 Northamptons in 1964.

Ray was then granted a Short Service Commission in August 1966 and acted as QM to 3 R Anglian, while they were in transit from Berlin to Aden. He was subsequently granted an LSRC and became Assistant Adjutant Depot R Anglian. Returning to 2 R Anglian in 1968 in Gibraltar he was again Assistant Adjutant and Adventure Training Officer successfully running expeditions to climb Jebel Toubkal in Morocco, the highest mountain in North Africa.

As part of Strategic Command he saw service with the Battalion in Kenya, Malaysia, Norway, Gibraltar, and the UK, becoming 2ic C Company, then OC C Company. Again in Kenya he organized an Adventure Training programme, which saw many of the Battalion climbing Pt. Lenana on Mount Kenya, 16,355 ft high and astride the equator.

He moved with the Battalion to Munster (punctuated by emergency tours in Northern Ireland) where he was Tech QM and ultimately Major QM. Returning with the Battalion to Gillingham he then became SO3G4 HQ Northern Ireland, where a year later he retired, as he said only 14 miles away from where his service had begun.

Ray then led a very full and active retirement, starting with over 4 years with the Arabian American Oil Company in Saudi Arabia. He returned on the outbreak of the Falklands War settling in the New Forest where he took up a retired officer’s post as SO3G4 HQ Marchwood Military Port, then SO2G4 at HQ 4 Division in Aldershot. He finally retired from the service in May 1995, but still active he worked for SSAFA in their New Forest Division, and as Exams Invigilator for Southampton University.

Sadly, his first wife Pamela died of cancer in 1991. Well into retirement he married his second wife Ann, a Canadian, in 1997 and they moved to Toronto Canada. There, one of his last great pleasures was to be able to visit the Plains of Abraham in Quebec, scene of the Regiment’s historic battle against the French which resulted in Canada becoming a British possession.