Welsh Cavalry
Welsh Cavalry commemorative playing cards with illustrations by Dan Peterson, 2012.
This pack could equally have two other titles: (1) 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards commemorative playing cards; or (2) Op Herrick 15. All three options are prominently displayed on the box and explanatory cards.
All UK military operations in Afghanistan were conducted under the name Operation Herrick and Operation Herrick 15 ran from October 2011 until March 2012. 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards (QDG) is the Cavalry Regiment of Wales and the Border Counties, and it was during this period that the men and women of the QDG formed the core of the 20th Armoured Brigade to play a leading role in preparing the Afghan Security Forces to take over the security of their own country.
The pack shows 56 original full-colour portraits of the officers and senior NCOs who held key positions during Op Herrick 15. Each suit depicts an aspect of the structure of the operation: spades – Regimental Headquarters; hearts – A Squadron; clubs – B Squadron; diamonds – Brigade Reconnaissance Force. The portraits were made by Dan Peterson who was commissioned to design and produce this pack after spending a month with the regiment as an embedded war artist at the end of 2011. See the box►
Above: Welsh Cavalry commemorative playing cards with illustrations by Dan Peterson, 2012.
By Peter Burnett
Member since July 27, 2022
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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