Walter Jackson (3)

Major Walter G. "Jacko" Jackson (25 July 1913 - 10 November 2004) was Director of Music of the Life Guards 1959-1970. Enlisted into the Royal Horse Guards (The Blues) at Regents Park Barracks on 2 December 1927. As a clarinetist, he was selected for a Pupils’ Course at Kneller Hall in 1931, something of a rarity for a Household Cavalry musician at the time. He returned to Kneller Hall as a student bandmaster in 1939, the outbreak of the Second World War interrupting the course which would normally have lasted three years. He finally left Kneller Hall in May 1945, on appointment as Bandmaster to the 1st Battalion North Staffordshire Regiment, which unfortunately had no Band. He was then posted to the 2nd/5th Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment in Austria, and given the task of forming a volunteer band. After a short stay with the Fifth Northamptonshires, he was recalled to Kneller Hall to teach the clarinet. In November 1946, he was appointed Bandmaster to the Queen’s Bays. Thirteen years later, the Bays and King’s Dragoon Guards amalgamated, and Jacko became a light infantryman on appointment as Brigade Bandmaster of the Light Infantry in January 1959. On the 8th October 1959 Bandmaster Jackson became Lieutenant and Director of Music, The Life Guards. Happily back in the Household Cavalry, he was promoted to Captain in 1960, and Major on the 14th May 1966. In 1971 Her Majesty The Queen made him a MBE. His other decorations were the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal and Bar, the War Medal and the Defence Medal. He retired from The Life Guards on 25 July 1970, and took over as Director of Music of the Junior Musicians’ Wing at the Guards Depot, where he stayed until 1 April 1981.