# Canadian Military Mess Traditions



## PMC~31CER (10 Dec 2012)

A discussion was recently started regarding the setting of a place for the Fallen Soldier at Mess dinners.  Reading the Regimental Rogue it indicates the practice has only really taken off during the last decade and I'm being told it is an American practice. I'm looking for a more precise history of the practice...where it started and when.  RCAF set the place for the Fallen Aviator during WW II.  I'd appreciate it if anyone has information relating to the practice with references...yes, I'll need that too when I present my arguement at the Regiment.

Thanks much

PCM-31CER


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## WLSC (10 Dec 2012)

AT my Regiment. Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal, its at least 30 years.  I've seen it place at two places.  In front of the honor table or, in front of our little cenotaph on the parade square.  We light a candle on his table just before the name of the fallen are read.


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## Edward Campbell (10 Dec 2012)

In a career that began including mess dinners about 50 years ago, I never saw this "custom," (if it is, indeed, a custom) at all, until the early 1990s - in the USA.

I don't know where the custom came from, but I know that it is not an Anglo-Canadian tradition, not, at least, one that predates the late 1990s.

The traditions of "dining in" are rooted in the 19th century when, as now, messes were rare and officers, pretty much, lived on their own, in the community.* The regimental dinner is, essentially, a "family dinner" and there is, of course, no reason why we should not honour fallen colleagues but it has not been a major part of our regimental traditions for as long as I served.


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* Go take a look at e.g. Fort Henry in Kingston. The little officers mess was for the (very few) RA and RE officers who actually lived in the fort, proper. The officers of the assigned infantry regiments lived in the town - some of the buildings in which they lived (at the foot of Princess Street) are still standing. Larger messes - a home for all the officers - were "frontier" innovations, found mostly in India. Most of our dinner customs date from the late Victorian period and reflect how we think gentlemen might have dined about 150 years ago. The only custom that, as far as I know, goes back much father than that is the loyal toast - which, clearly, predates the early 18th century. In fact the custom of clearing the table before the toast was, reportedly, to prevent Jacobite sympathizers from drinking their toast to "the king across the water" by passing their port glass over a water (or wine) glass.


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## dapaterson (10 Dec 2012)

I recall seeing the table for one in an Engineers' mess in the early 90s; the senior (in age, not rank) individual present would recite Binyon before the meal.  The long, drawn-out lemon and salt speech is something I've only seen in the past few years.


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## daftandbarmy (10 Dec 2012)

I never saw anything like this in the UK while I was there, presumably because no one paid for the empty spot.  ;D.

A toast to 'Our Fallen Comrades' (whose mess bills were promptly paid by their estates, no doubt) was quite common.


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## Edward Campbell (10 Dec 2012)

Agreed with D&B: a toast, usually "absent friends," was common but not so common as to be the rule.


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## Haggis (10 Dec 2012)

Personally, I see nothing wrong with it.  Any tradition has to originate somewhere.  Since most of ours are already imported from our British and Scottish forefathers, why not import one from our neioghbours and allies to the south?


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