Checkpoint Charlie on the Tamar Bridge

This is a publicity stunt by the Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry as the British Army looks to drive recruitment for the Territorial Army by imposing customs and border controls on the Tamar Bridge between Devon and Cornwall. In the Cold War era Checkpoint Charlie was the name given to the border crossing at the Berlin Wall between West and East Berlin in the then East Germany or German Democratic Republic (GDR or DDR) and made famous as a location for the exchange of spies.

The Tamar Bridge is a A38 toll bridge running next to Brunel’s 1859 railway bridge, the Royal Albert Bridge and was inaugurated in 1962 and spans the River Tamar between Plymouth in Devon and Saltash in Cornwall. The Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry (SCLI) was formed in 1959 by the amalgamation of the Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert’s) and the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry. The Regimental Depot was at Bodmin in Cornwall and the Regimental Headquarters at Taunton in Somerset. The 1st Battalion was stationed in Osnabruck in what was then West Germany and was supported by the Territorial Army (TA). The TA is known today as the Army Reserve.