The old guard passes : January - March 2022

We mark the passing of those who have served this country. Contributions from comrades and families are welcome - write to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

(Please see next page for this quarter's obituaries)

Distant Voices remembers others who have gone before. At the start of this Platinum Jubilee year, WINDSOR, HM Albert Frederick Arthur George Windsor, King, Emperor 14 December 1895 - 6 February 1952 is recalled in an article 'The King Is Dead' (the _late James Cameron – London Illustrated News – 23rd February 1952)

"When a King dies, we who have to put into words the strange grief and grievous strangeness of the time, then know how ill we have served ourselves over the years. While the King lived, we spoke of him as this, and of that, endowing him with all the remote virtues of an infallible man; such men do not die. But the King died; and we found somehow a different thing: that we loved him. When a King dies, the worn words are empty; there is nothing left to say.

He died quietly and without imposing his passing on the nation, as befitted a gentleman who was as shy and considerate and shrank from the public drama of death. When it came, it came as he deserved, kindly – a good night, a book at the bedside, a little sleep. The least amongst us can ask no more and no better.

But that was the end of privacy. The King was gone, but kingship remained, to become for a while the overwhelming emotion of the land. The man who had been diffident all of his life, who had dutifully permitted publicity about everything except his suffering, now stilled the noise and hushed the argument and silenced the affairs of State, and drew for the moment an inescapable curtain of mourning over the lives of millions who had never seen his face.

What is a King that so many strangers should sorrow at his going? His title endures, work goes on, no crisis is changed, no personal problems eased or worsened, the harassed world outside is deflected in no way from its obsessions. Yet, when King George V1 was known to be dead the sudden shadow fell momentarily across the heart of every man; loyal men and cynics, the rich and the dispossessed, reactionaries and radicals.

What is a King, then, a mortal man, who exacts this tribute from twentieth century people? Constitutional lawyers will tell you what he was. Politicians will tell you what he was unable to be. A vast historic chronicle of precept will tell you that his position was most intricately poised on the peak of Government. It will say that the Monarchy this country devised for itself over the generations is like no other that ever existed, I its ancient root and its modern tolerance; its power without authority; its simple splendour and elaborate simplicity.

Only in a strange country like ours could an apparently indestructible fortress be built on such a slender web of compromise and affection, that no logic could create and no law enforce.

What is a King, therefore, that hundreds of thousands of strangers should wait all night in the bitter cold to file for a moment past his bier? That person cannot be an Office, or a Function; he must be a man. And there lies the simple truth: our people knew him as a good man. They knew him for a man without ostentation, without ambition, doing an intolerable job and doing it well. They know now, moreover, that that the job weas harder than they thought, and the end nearer.

We may not have known as citizens – how could we? – but the ancestral memory of England knows it. The people of England have not always loved their Kings. Among them have been tyrants, conquerors, oppressors, imbeciles, and mediocrities. England has endured them, reviled them, deposed them and, where necessary, executed them Sometimes, only, have they loved them and we think of this as such a time.

We never found it hard to understand a man who loved his family. We do not find it hard, now, to salute a King who, inheriting a generation racked and anxious as no other before, di what he had to do with dignity, patience and courage.

He who had planned great voyages over the quarter of the world that owned him as King, has done his best, and greatest – from Norfolk to London and from London to Windsor".

 ARENGO-JONES Col Anthony (Paul) Arengo-Jones CVO died 12 March 2022 aged 77 Glosters
AYLMER Col John Anthony (Tony) Aylmer 7 October 1925 - 25 January 2022 Home Guard, Irish Guards 3 Bn reinforcements to Germany. Palestine. 2nd Div Germany. MA to CDS Lord Mountbatten. i/c 1st Bn Aden
BENNETT Air V M Sir Erik Peter Bennett CB, CVO 3 September 1928 - 28 January 2022 Egypt, Iraq CO RAF Boulmer. Egypt. Loan officer Royal Jordanian Air Force Adviser to Sultan of Oman
BLAKER Lt Col Guy Peter Blaker died 2 Fe 2022 aged 85. RGJ
COLLINS William Janson Collins MBE 10 June 1929 - 29 January 2022 Coldsteam Guards National Sevic. Later publisher
CRUMMACK Jean Constance Crummack (nee Duckett) died 22 Feb 2022 aged 100. Wartime VAD
CURTIS Brigadier Geoffrey Basil Curtis OBE MC 7 June 1922 - 31 January 2022 Queen's Royal Regt (West Surey 2/6 bn) Iraq, Tunisia, Landed Salerno 9 Sept 1943 MC. Monte Cassino, Anzio, Lombardy, Veneto (wounded) later Aden, Malaya

GIRI Surgeon Captain George Giri OBE died March 2022 aged 98. HMS Tamar Hong Kong 1960's. Brit rep to SEATO
HALE Cdr Timothy John Windham Hale died 26 Feb 2022 aged 86
HANCOCK Major (Tom) Thomas William Hancock DL died 8th Feb 2022 aged 94
HANOTTE 2nd Lt (Monique) Henriette Lucis Hanotte MBE 10 August 1920 - 19 Feb 2022 Comet Line M!9 140 border crossings with evadersto Lille or Paris. Later ATS Special Froces
HARRISON Colin John McRae Harrison CVO OBE died 6 March 2022 aged 82. Rifle Brigade and Royal Green Jackets.
HERBERT Edward Ivor Montgomery Herbert 20 August 1925 - 5 January 2022 Officer Coldsteam Guards Germany 1945
HEWETSON Col Sir Christopher Hewetson died 12 Dec 2021 aged 91
HIGHAM Cdr Michael Bernard Shiley Higham CVO died 4 March 2022 aged 85
HOWARD Col John Robert Lowry Howard died 1 March 2022 aged 95. 13th/18th Royal Hussars (QMO)
HURFORD Lt Cdr Peter Dermot Hurford died 8 March 2022 aged 82
LEONARD Lt Col John Nicholas Leonard died 12 Jan 2022 aged 86
MALLABY (Sir) Christopher Leslie George Mallaby GCMG GCVO 7 July 1916 - 28 Feb 2022 National Service BAOR 9th Queen's Royal Lancers later diplomat
MCGEE Col Charles McGee 7 December 1919 - 16 January 2022 US Air Force, Tuskegee airman 409 combat missions WWII (137 escorting bombers over Europe and ground attack), Korea (100), Vietnam (172 recce)
PAYNE Lt Col C W Payne died 5 February 2022 Royal Artillery
PIRNIE Rear Adm Ian Hugh Pirnie CB died 17 January 2022 aged 86
RICHARDS Lt Cdr Kim Richards died 11 April 2022 aged 93
SALWEY Captain Bryan David Salwey RN died 19 February 2022
SAVAGE Captain Raymond Percival Savage 2 December 1919 - 5 Jan 2022 1/5th bn Leicestershire Regt. Norway campaign, escaped to Sweden, India, Malaya, surrendered Singapore . River Kwai
SHERVINGTON Richard Anthony Shervington dies 28 March 2022 aged 84 Essex and Royal Anglian Regts
STEEL Lt Col Robert Anthony (Tom) Steel PBE APTC died 27 March 2022 aged 74

TICKELL Sir Crispin Tickell died 25 January 2022 aged 91
TULLETT Derek Tullett CBE 7 December 1934 - 9 January 2022 National Service, Queen's Royal Surry seconded to SAS Malaya
WADE Lt Col Peter William Wade died 8 Feb 2022 aged 90 Prince of Wales' Own