A local man who has served in the Army for 34 years has been honoured by The Queen for his service to Great Britain and to its ethnic communities. Captain Makand Singh has been presented with an MBE by Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal on behalf of The Queen at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace which he attended together with his wife Bindi. Makand (51) is now a captain with 159 Supply Regiment (V) working at its Coventry HQ in Canley and lives in Walsall. He joined the Army in 1977 – the Royal Army Ordinance Corps – and has served in Germany, Bosnia, Hong Kong and Belize before returning to the UK to join the Army’s recruiting organisation in the late 1990s. Here, he has worked with ethnic communities opening doors to the British Army, and has become the national focal point in the Army for Sikhs. Makand was born in Kuala Lumpur but as his father, Baldev Singh, was in the Army, he and his brother Gurnam were sent to school firstly in India, and then in the early 1970s to the UK – Tidworth and Rowley Regis. Baldev was in the British Army’s Royal Army Services Corps and was the first turban wearing Sikh soldier. Makand said, “I am very honoured to receive the MBE, and was delighted to be presented with it by HRH The Princess Royal as she is Colonel in Chief of my Corps – the Royal Logistic Corps. “I have enjoyed my whole career with the Army but for the last 10 years, working in the West Midlands helping to make an Army career accessible to members of local communities has been particularly rewarding. There are now more than 95 Sikhs in the British Army as well as many Hindu and Muslim soldiers.
