Reginald John Taylor Hills

1913-c.1915

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The eldest of two boys, Reginald John Taylor Hills born in 1896 in Bromley, Kent, to John Masters and Eliza Beatrice Hills.  He and his brother, Noel, initially grew up in Bromley but sometime after 1901 his family moved to Windsor. In 1908, when he was twelve, Reginald, a pupil of the Royal Free Schools, was given the first Windsor Municipal Scholarship, worth £75 per year.  By 1910, Reginald was a student at Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster), where he was reported to his come first in his class and to have been awarded the prestigious Quintanin prize.  In 1911, Reginald’s exam results allowed him to be awarded a County Scholarship, to be tenable at Windsor County Boys School (later Windsor Grammar School.)

 

Reginald was also an early member of the Scouts and a founding member of the 1st Windsor Scout Troop. In 1911 he was one of the first in the district to achieve the Kings Scout Award, which had been introduced in 1909 and remains the highest possible award a Scout can achieve.  In 1913, he was made provisional Assistant-Scoutmaster of the 1st Windsor troop and on his departure to Manchester took a similar role in a local troop there.

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Reginald left Windsor in 1913 to attend St Anselm Hall, with the intention to prepare for Matriculation and a University education. However, the First World War changed everything. By November 1914, despite being underage, Reginald had joined the 1st Life Guards. As far as can be ascertained, he never went back to education. After the war, Reginald remained with the Life Guards, and during his time there published work in a variety of places including the Cavalry Journal, the Dragon and the Boys Own paper.  He also his published several books, including ‘Something about a Solider’ (1934), on which the Sunday Times wrote ‘Corporal Major Hills… has done his job well’  

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In his personal life, Reginald married Gladys Pickett in Hertfordshire in 1919 and they had two daughters, Yvonne and Jacqueline.

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Reginald retired from the Life Guards in the 1930s but, following the outbreak of World War II, was given an emergency commission as quarter master in the Cavalry in December 1939.  In October 1940, he was transferred to the GCHQ Liaison Regiment (Phantom) as the 1st Quartermaster, a role given to him against the wishes of the Regiment’s commander Colonel Hopkinson and kept, according to Reginald, thanks to his ability to purchase waterproof clothing for the regiments motor cyclists.  In February 1941, Reginald was granted command of the ‘HQ’ Squadron and from October 1944, was the commander of ‘L’ Squadron.

 

After the war, Reginald published ‘Phantom was there’, which tells the story of Phantom Squadron.  Several further books, including ‘The Life Guards’, followed. Reginald died in Winchester in 1976, at the age of 80.

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