Fighters in the Blood: The Story of a Spitfire Pilot & the Son Who Followed in His Footsteps

By Black' Robertson and The Lord Stirup of Marylebone

A retired RAF air marshal looks back on his career and the career of his World War II pilot father in this military memoir.

As this fascinating memoir unfolds, moving backwards and forwards through time, two parallel stories emerge: one of a Second World War Spitfire ace whose flying career comes to a premature end when he’s shot down and loses an eye, the other of his progeny, a second-generation fighter pilot who eventually reaches the rank of air marshal.

The narrative is unique in its use of two separate and distinct voices. The author’s own reminiscences are interwoven with those his father recorded more than thirty years ago, embellished by extracts from some 300 of his wartime letters. Intensely personal and revealing, controversial too at times, this account is above all about people, not least those with whom the author flew while serving with the USAF—a tour marked by tragedy; that said, they proved altogether more friendly than the P-38 pilots who twice attacked his father in North Africa! A daughter with dual citizenship subsequently helped him sustain his links with the US, both while serving and afterwards in business.

The irony is that the son spent a lifetime training for the ultimate examination—one that, despite strictly limited preparation, his father passed with flying colors. To “Black” Robertson’s eternal regret he was never able to put his own training to the test. His father, “Robbie,” was awarded the DFC and retired as a flight lieutenant after five years or so. He himself served for nearly thirty-six years, earned a Queen’s Commendation, an OBE and CBE and served as an ADC to HM The Queen. But after reaching almost the top of the RAF tree, in one important sense he retired unfulfilled; his mettle was never tested under fire.

Anyone interested to know more about flying, about the RAF, about leadership, about character even, need look no further than this beautifully crafted, immensely readable account.

Praise for Fighters in the Blood

“Offers an insightful look into the professional development of an RAF airman from Cranwell cadet to Air Marshal, the evolution of the Royal Air Force itself from the early jet era of Hunters through the demanding days of NATO versus the Warsaw Pack and the defence of British interests (e.g. the Falklands) with the Phantom, and then on into the post-Cold War world where the need to strengthen RAF airpower is challenged by drawdowns, budgetary stringencies, and often misguided Mandarins driving questionable defence policy. I was struck by how beautifully the author integrated his father into the story . . . it is at once very moving and very effective, and, once again, works to integrate the RAF "then" with the RAF of the 1960s-1990s. The photographs are wonderful.  This book is a real winner.”” —Dr. Richard P. Hallion, Aerospace Historian

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781526784872

Black' Robertson

Air Marshal GRAEME ‘BLACK’ ROBERTSON CBE, BA, FRAeS, FRSA was born in Woodford, Essex in 1945. He entered the RAF College Cranwell in 1963 and five years later began his operational career on 8 Squadron, flying Hunters in Bahrain. A long association with the Phantom followed, including tours on 6 and 56 Squadrons, a USAF exchange, and command of both 92 Squadron in Germany and, briefly, 23 Squadron in the Falklands. In the mid-80s, as Station Commander RAF Wattisham, he was appointed ADC to HM The Queen. It was his last flying post until he returned to Germany in the early-90s, first as the Deputy Commander and thereafter as Air Officer Commanding No. 2 Group. His final appointment was as Chief of Staff and Deputy Commander-in-Chief, RAF Strike Command. He retired from the RAF in 1998.

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Prologue

He had been dead for eight years, so hearing his voice once again proved a strangely cathartic experience for my brother when he finally committed Father’s wartime reminiscences to paper in 2007. Transcribing this droll commentary more than twenty years after the recordings first reached him provided John with a belated ‘chance to chat and say a proper goodbye’. His efforts were given added poignancy when, in 2019, I finally plucked up the courage to open a cache of Father’s wartime letters home – literally hundreds of them lovingly preserved by my mother, herself long since dead.

Father was very much in my thoughts when the RAF marked its centenary with a flypast of 100 aircraft over central London on Tuesday, 10 July 2018. Moments earlier I had been standing in front of a Spitfire on London’s Horse Guards Parade. It was almost exactly the spot where I had stood sixty-five years earlier facing a similar aircraft. The tube journey into the heart of London for a Battle of Britain anniversary event that day was an adventure in itself; for my father it was a trip down memory lane. He could hardly conceal his delight at being invited to climb into a Spitfire cockpit for the first time since being shot down in North Africa in 1942. The aircraft’s custodian that day eleven years later was a young airman, only too pleased to chat with a visiting veteran. Similarly happy to converse were the two youngsters in front of the 2018 exhibit. Awaiting the start of their own flying careers they were dressed in authentic 1940s’ garb and armed with a plethora of Spitfire information. Their youthful enthusiasm and patent lack of artifice conjured up images of their forebears, the pilots who forged the RAF’s wartime reputation.

One of these was Geoffrey Wellum, at barely 19 thought to be the youngest Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot. His brilliant 2002 account of those desperate days, First Light, is a latter-day classic. A coming of age tale rather than a story of derring-do, it speaks less of heroism, more of human frailty. I came to know this hugely respected individual through our shared affection for the family that 92 Squadron to this day still represents. Too ill to witness the public highlight of the RAF’s celebrations at first hand, it seemed somehow preordained that Wellum should live long enough to see the flypast on television; he died just eight days later.

As my gaze flicked between individual aircraft overhead and the larger formations shown on two huge television screens, it was impossible not to be caught up in the excitement of the moment – as was the nation at large. London was full to overflowing. Television showed that even Trafalgar Square, just a few hundred yards away, was crammed full with people emerging from shops, restaurants and offices to witness this unique spectacle. Mingling with the good natured crowd of 70,000 or so as they wended their way from a packed Mall afterwards, there was an almost tangible sense of euphoria. Even the taxi driver who returned me to my hotel seemed infused with the spirit of the occasion. His meter was turned off throughout a somewhat fraught journey in heavy traffic. When asked about the final cost he replied, ‘Whatever you think is fair.’The £15 proffered was, ‘Too much. Call it a tenner, Guv.’ Then, as we parted company, he thrust his arm out of the cab and shook my hand. A uniform clearly meant as much on that special day as it did during the wartime years.

By the time I retired in 1999, in total Father and I had served Queen and country for over half the RAF’s young life – some forty-one years, during which we went through a number of similar experiences: amusing, exciting, frightening and in his case life-changing. He lost an eye. On a day that began with a moving service in Westminster Abbey, such thoughts were never far from my mind. Nor was the individual who had been closest to me from the day we joined the RAF together. As a former Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Squire ought to have been there too but it was not to be; he died unexpectedly just a few months earlier.

These musings, together with the need to pay belated tribute to a father’s courage, skill and passion for flying – not to mention his devotion to the teenager he was eventually to marry – finally prompted me to set out a few personal experiences before they fade from memory. While Father’s exploits are recounted in his own words, both recorded and from his letters, my own are based solely on the flying log book mandated for all RAF pilots, supplemented by an occasionally suspect memory. For any resulting errors I can only apologise. But prompted by the realisation that I certainly won’t be around for the RAF’s next major anniversary, let alone its bicentenary, recording these memories here, no matter how imperfectly, represents a labour of love, a mark of respect for an admired father and a homage to the Service that was my life.

GAR

Chapter 1

What’s in a Name?

Acopy of Debrett’s Etiquette & Modern Manners , 1981 edition, pages yellow with age, sits in my bookcase having hardly been opened in decades. Would that I had heeded the advice on page 142 regarding introductions: ‘Never mumble, be audible and clear. It is awkward for [people] to have to turn to each other and say, I’m afraid I didn’t quite hear your name.’ To make matters worse, reiterating that, ‘It’s Black Robertson,’ occasionally obliterates the name of the individual to whom I’ve just been introduced. My sympathies go out to all those who’ve suffered as a result. Try being me!

So often have I been asked about the origin of my nickname that it seems the obvious place to begin, even if it means setting aside the chronological approach that an obsession with neatness and order would otherwise dictate. Freedom from such conventions also makes it easier to draw parallels between Father’s experiences and my own. So I make no apology for the detours and digressions backwards and forwards through time that are an essential part of these reminiscences.

They begin on 9 September 1963, the day that, together with the sixtyeight others who comprised No 89 Entry, most fresh out of school and still wet behind the ears, I arrived at the Royal Air Force College, Cranwell – under false pretences as it turned out, but more of that later. Without a woman among us – equal opportunity was an unknown concept in those early days – we were the first entry, eventually, to embrace the entire gamut of professional specialisations. In a cohort comprising mostly aspiring pilots and navigators, engineers were conspicuously absent from our number until the 1965 merger with the RAF’s Technical College at Henlow.¹ These late additions were spared an initial regime that was spartan to say the least. As Junior Entry flight cadets we enjoyed no privileges whatsoever and were effectively confined to barracks for the first six weeks or so. Not that we could have got up to much mischief beyond the camp boundaries; cadets were paid a pittance, less than £5 per week. Of this meagre sum we could spend no more than £5 each month on alcohol across the Junior Mess bar, where individual expenditure was carefully monitored in individual bar books. Charges accrued to a mess bill that had to be paid by cheque by the tenth of each month. Failure to meet this bill was a chargeable offence, and woe betide anyone whose bank account went into the red. This and much else was impressed on us in a series of introductory lectures, not least on setting up bank accounts (few if any of us had one) and how to write cheques. Worldly-wise we were not, which may explain why the College had its own bank.

To this day I maintain the same bank account arranged in nearby Sleaford early one Saturday morning at a relatively formal meeting with the manager. Helpful he may have been, but seated behind a wooden desk in his formal suit, he brought back uncomfortable memories of one-sided headmasters’ interviews. One of the civilians entrusted with the task of introducing new cadets to the real world in this way was the unfailingly obliging John Ulyatt, scion of a Nottingham firm of brokers, Frank S. Ulyatt. Like me, a number of cadets remained his loyal clients until he retired, arranging everything from insurance to mortgages and latterly investments. Annual kit insurance was the usual starting point. If premiums seemed a burden on impecunious young cadets, according to a more knowing senior individual such costs could always be recouped through an occasional claim for mythical losses – advice, I hasten to add, that was studiously ignored.

Ulyatt was one of a number of accredited individuals, salesmen in reality, who regularly plied their trade in the Junior Mess – all part of the process of assisting the transition from schoolboy to potential officer. Early emphasis on turnout, on smartness and appearance, meant induction into the mysteries of personal tailoring and hand-made footwear (Oxford uniform shoes courtesy of Messrs Poulsen & Skone). Tailoring was the province either of Gieves, the long-established military outfitters with on-site premises, or one of the visiting firms such as R.E. City, represented by Frank Varney. Together with his cutter, Charles Goodwin, Frank later set up his own successful tailoring business in Sleaford. Like John Ulyatt, Frank proved a good friend and sage adviser to many a young cadet. Being measured for my first bespoke suit brought a moment I will always remember. As Frank’s assistant recorded various measurements I could just about follow what he was writing down until he added ‘P.S.’ to one particular notation. When I asked what this meant he explained that it was simply, ‘Tailors’ code, Sir’. Still curious, I pressed him further until he eventually conceded that it stood for ‘Prominent seat. We allow a little extra material here, Sir.’ I knew I had a dropped right shoulder but this was a new and not entirely flattering revelation.

There were two College entries each year comprising four separate squadrons, each identified by a coloured flash on the white georgette patches sewn into uniform collars. I found myself in A Squadron wearing red; it was yellow for B, blue for C and green for D Squadron. Initial accommodation was allocated by squadrons in the huts (circa 1915) of the South Brick Lines, each of which housed half a dozen or so of us, including a member of the previous entry who effectively acted as a mentor. The entrance comprised a line of individual hand basins, each with a small mirrored cabinet above, a single shower and lavatory. This area gave way to the linoleum-floored sleeping area, beyond which was a small carpeted ante room where we were each allocated a single desk and chair. Cadets were responsible for keeping the accommodation area in immaculate condition for the regular formal inspections. Drill sergeants wearing white gloves were capable of instantly finding any speck of dust, misplaced razor or sign of inattention to detail such as a poorly made bed. Transgressions resulted in charges where the punishment was a few days’ ‘strikers’: a requirement to present oneself immaculate in uniform for evening inspections by Senior Entry cadets.

Notwithstanding our personal housekeeping efforts, a batman oversaw the condition of the accommodation in more general terms. These College servants were a special breed, genuine characters steeped in Cranwell folklore. Some had spent almost their entire life in the service of the RAF, indeed one such individual recalled ‘batting’ when Douglas Bader was a cadet. The legless flying ace certainly made his mark at Cranwell. Not only was he an immensely talented sportsman (his picture as part of the College rugby team is a regular site of homage), on his entry’s graduation in 1930 he was one of only two Flight Cadet Under Officers, the highest cadet rank at the time. Batmen had an uncanny ability to identify those cadets likely to succeed and those who might fall by the wayside during the three-year course. Their assessments were based purely on perceived character. In theory they had no knowledge of flying ability, the critical factor in most cases, but had they access to such information it would have come as no surprise. The dedication and devotion to their charges of the majority of these individuals was remarkable, witness an incident in my final term. My wake-up call and morning cup of tea was delivered ten minutes late and not by my usual batman. The apology said it all: ‘Sorry for the delay, Sir. Horace dropped dead this morning and it’s caused a bit of a problem.’ Unfortunately the individual in question had been found lying, expired, in one of the corridors.

The hut in which I found myself, together inter alios with two almost inseparable Devonians, Jerry Pook and Russ Pengelly (both of whom went on to make considerable names for themselves in the Harrier and Lightning respectively), was the responsibility of ‘Pop’ Amies, a big, bluff Lincolnshire character. He delighted in referring to ‘his’ flight cadets as ‘****ing crows’, an early indication that a batman’s respect had to be earned; it was by no means a right. The origin of the term ‘crows’, traditionally applied to the Junior Entry, was never clear – possibly an allusion to the vast number of birds that cawed incessantly from the tall trees in the College grounds.

The only means of escaping the confines of the College in those early days and meeting senior cadets on more or less level terms was through sport. This proved my salvation. Sport was my one great love. Competition for places in the rugby XV was extremely stiff and this, together with strictly limited ability, led me to opt for hockey, where I was fortunate enough to make it into the College team. There was also a new sport to learn about: crowing. It involved members of the Senior Entry descending from the lofty heights of the College proper to have fun at the new arrivals’ expense. For these exalted individuals it was an amusing diversion; for the Junior Entry it was a relatively painless and educational form of bullying. In my case it also exposed an embarrassing naïveté. Early one evening a strident call of ‘Attention!’, the required response in the event of our seniors’ arrival, heralded a personal grilling. As I stood rigidly erect, eyes firmly focused on the wall ahead, in front of me appeared a tall, imposing Senior Under Officer (SUO), flanked by acolytes including a dapper Pakistani, Under Officer (UO) Pervez. ‘Do you know who I am?’ said my interrogator. ‘The Senior Under Officer, Sir,’ I replied. More was needed. ‘And what’s my name?’ I hesitated, ‘Come on boy,’ until inspiration at last arrived: ‘Hampshire, Sir.’ This brought peals of laughter from UO Pervez and his colleagues. ‘Are you trying to be funny?’ said the SUO. I wasn’t of course; I was simply nonplussed. The reason for this hilarity was that the individual in question was John Cheshire, son of Air Chief Marshal Sir Walter Cheshire, at the time a serving officer. Thanks too to the exploits of Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC, ² John was the bearer of one of the most celebrated of RAF names and went on to considerable success himself.³ Such confusion was an early example of how, over the years, I sometimes came perilously close to getting things right, to success even, without ever quite reaching the heights; it betokened, too, a lack of awareness that it would take hard work and dedication to overcome.

Early in that first term the hockey XI began to focus, as did all College teams, on the inter-Service events, forthcoming matches against our Army and Navy equivalents. A measure of how seriously these were taken is that in the run up to the first, against the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, for a couple of days each week we even trained before breakfast. There was a palpable feeling of excitement among those of the Junior Entry lucky enough to be selected, whether it was for rugby, hockey or any of the minor sports (cross-country, squash, badminton, basketball and shooting) also included in the weekend’s activities. Then one misty Friday morning in November, we set off by coach for Grantham and the initial leg of an all-day rail journey to Devon. It was my first real escape from relative isolation. When he established the RAF College in 1919, Lord Trenchard had the foresight to locate it in the heart of Lincolnshire, reasoning that the flat countryside would be ideal in the event of the inevitable student forced landing. But there was another factor in his choice of location. ‘Marooned in the wilderness … Cranwell was far from the vice and pleasure area of London.’⁴ For some of us the trip thus represented a first opportunity to taste the delights of London since arriving at Cranwell – fleetingly en route to Dartmouth, but for an entire day on the return journey. A couple of us managed this by catching the overnight train on Saturday from Newton Abbot, courtesy of a lift from an obliging Dartmouth midshipman (the Navy’s flight cadet equivalent). We eventually returned to the College in time for the Sunday night curfew, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The journey to Dartmouth passed in something of a haze as, keen to be accepted, I joined my elders and betters in downing the odd can of beer as the journey progressed. Never a great drinker, by the time we finally arrived at Dartmouth in the early evening I would have been happy to retire quietly to bed. No such luck. There waiting for us were a number of midshipmen. ‘Welcome to Dartmouth,’ said a smiling individual. ‘I’m marking you. We’re off to The Gun Room for a beer. Don’t worry about your kit. It’ll be taken to your cabin.’ And with that began the longest evening of my young life. So insistent and generous were our hosts that it was almost impossible for my companion, Bruce Holben, and I to buy any drinks ourselves – all part of a cunning plan as I was subsequently to discover. It was not until much later that night and our arrival at the Dartmouth Boatel (the clue is in the name) that I finally managed to buy a round. Feeling immensely proud of myself for coming up with such an inspired idea, I added double vodkas to the beers for my marker and his companion. The next thing I remember was stumbling down the steps of the Boatel as we left. Finding myself at the feet of a policeman I was rescued by an Australian. ‘Don’t worry officer,’ said Johnny Hazell, ‘It’s the RAF. They’re playing the College tomorrow. I’m just taking them back,’ whereupon I was poured into Johnny’s ancient Austin 7, ‘You Beauty Two’, and delivered to my cabin.

The next thing I remember was a loud ‘whoosh’ as the curtains round my bunk were pulled back, followed by ‘Christ, you black bastard!’ I was lying stark naked, pallid and sickly looking, with every little jet-black hair (and there were lots of them) on my body standing to attention – or so I was reliably informed by those who had apparently been searching for me for some time. There was barely an hour until the morning bully-off so I was pointed towards a shower, a glass of water appeared from somewhere, and eventually I managed to clamber gingerly into my sports kit. In no shape for such an important match, I was soon trotting through an avenue of politely applauding watchers when a familiar voice wished me good luck. It was my ‘marker’ from the previous evening. ‘I thought you were marking me,’ I said. ‘Oh no old boy. I was only marking you last night!’ We somehow managed to contain the Navy until half time; thereafter we were effectively submerged by a superior team on an artificial pitch that demanded techniques that were beyond us. It didn’t help our cause either that I was far from the only flight cadet some way short of peak physical condition that morning.

The upshot of all this was that I became known as ‘The black bastard’. Word of this soon got back to Pop Amies, who delighted in taunting me as ‘You ****ing black crow’. Baiting young cadets was Pop’s stock in trade, but it once brought unexpected results. We always got on very well but whenever we met in later years, even after his retirement, he took great delight in pointing to a scar in the middle of his forehead, the legacy of a heavy wooden hanger I once threw at him in an otherwise good-natured response to his taunting. Eventually an unflattering soubriquet was shortened simply to ‘Black’. It proved impossible to lose this tag, although I thought there might be an opportunity when I arrived in Arizona in 1972 for an exchange tour with the United States Air Force (USAF). Unfortunately I was met by an RAF colleague who knew me only by my nickname. The chance had gone. That said, another colleague did offer a glimmer of hope when we worked together in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) during the early 80s. Possibly affected by early onset political correctness, he took delight in referring to me as ‘Darkness’. Needless to say, it never stuck.

By way of a footnote to this story, not long after my retirement I received a telephone call from the RAF’s personnel department asking if I would be happy for my name to be put forward as the (ex-)military candidate for the governorship of Bermuda. Given that there would be plenty of better candidates from among the great and the good, I rated my chances of success as close to zero as makes no difference. However, I wasn’t prepared to provide an immediate reply. The question needed some thought, plus consultation with my wife, so I arranged to call back with a response next morning. An evening’s due diligence revealed that in March 1973 the Governor, Sir Richard Sharples, and his aide-de-camp, Captain Hugh Sayers, had been killed as they strolled in the grounds of Government House. These assassinations came six months to the day after the island’s British police chief, George Duckett, was also shot dead. At the time there were apparently murmurs of discontent about the island’s status as a British dependent territory, particularly among less privileged black Bermudians. There was concern too, it seemed, that the governorship had never gone to an indigenous candidate. I therefore couldn’t help smiling at the unlikely prospect of a governor known as ‘Black’ Robertson. This thought had eluded the RAF staffs too, but it mattered not. In the event, and unsurprisingly, I was an also-ran in this particular race.

Chapter 2

Earliest Recollections – Illness, Loss and Two Discoveries

My earliest recollection is not a particularly pleasant one. It was seeing Mother carried out of our small house in Ilford on a stretcher. She had contracted what was known then as infantile paralysis and subsequently as polio. Happily, she eventually recovered, leaving as the only outward sign of her illness a slight muscular weakness in one corner of her mouth for which she occasionally apologised. Unnecessary of course, but how typically British to feel the need to apologise for something over which one has absolutely no control!

A second early memory, disturbing too in its way, was noticing for the first time an eye, immersed in fluid and peering at me out of a tumbler on a bathroom shelf. I later learned that Father removed this glass appendage, the legacy of his final Spitfire flight, every night, donning a knitted eye-patch and eventually replacing his right eye next morning. I never once heard him complain about this infirmity. Rather, he attributed his wartime survival to being shot down because it ended a flying career where survival rates were relatively low. Besides which, he’d already had more than his fair share of luck – a trait I was more than happy to inherit. It’s hard to imagine how difficult for him the resulting lack of depth perception must have made life in general and driving in particular. That said, unlike his son, he was never once involved in a car accident. Parking though was a different matter. He was prone to the odd minor nudge when manoeuvring in restricted areas, particularly when parking near the family beach hut at Frinton-on-Sea in his retirement. All four corners of his various cars over the years bore testament to this fact. Unlike the wraparound systems fitted to modern vehicles, oldfashioned metal bumpers were made for people like Father.

It took me some time to establish the link between his glass eye and an old leather flying helmet that languished in the shed attached to our garage. The moment I found it lying amongst an assortment of what can only be described as junk is still as clear to me as day. Unaware of its significance, I marvelled at this mysterious object as it lay there in diffused sunlight. Once I’d examined it and worked out what it was, I put it on and immediately became conscious of a peculiar smell – not unpleasant, simply different from anything I’d previously experienced. It became more noticeable as I attempted to fasten across my face the attached oxygen mask. Only later did I learn that it was the very helmet Father had been wearing when he was shot down. This explained the deformities in the metal accoutrements across the nosepiece, the result of shrapnel penetrating his cockpit canopy. Unusually, his aircraft had been hit by cannon fire from the front quarter. The vast majority of aircraft lost during the Second World War were shot down from behind, many of them totally oblivious of the approaching danger.

Years before discovering this relic from the past, Mother’s illness led to a few weeks spent with grandparents in Woodford, ‘Ferdie’ and ‘Else’ Freeman; they lived just a few hundred yards from the nursing home where I was born. The stay was marked by a series of terror dreams. Semi-submerged in an all-enveloping feather mattress, I would wake up panic-stricken as each dream ended the same way – with me running away from something or someone unknown, then tumbling over a precipice and dropping into oblivion. Fortunately, these dreams never recurred once Mother recovered and I was able to return home. Ferdie died unexpectedly in 1962 at the age of only 63. He and my grandmother, gentle souls both, are remembered mainly for their various kindnesses over the years and, in Ferdie’s case, for a love of horse racing that I could never understand. On race days he would sit for hours, glued to a small black-and-white television, his rapt attention interrupted by occasional trips to the black Bakelite telephone that sat on a hallway table. In retrospect, he was almost certainly involved in off-course betting activity that was illegal until 1961. A placid man, I saw him lose his temper only once, when a horse named Kerstin was beaten in a photo finish; I can only assume that a good deal of money rested on the result. The image is crystal clear because it was so out of character, or so I thought until my brother recalled a similar explosion when, after briefly leaving the room, Ferdie returned to find that John had turned off the television mid-broadcast.

Later in life our daughter, Nicole, developed a passion for horses, moving from Pony Club via eventing and point-to-points to racehorse training in the USA. Strange as it may seem, I never associated her choice of career with Ferdie’s love of horse racing until after Mother died. Sifting through her effects I found a postcard-sized photograph of a beaming soldier astride one of a pair of horses yoked to a wagon. It could only be Ferdie. Later still, researching his war record, I discovered that he had been a private in the 20th Hussars. Originally based at Colchester, the regiment landed in France in August 1914, just weeks after the outbreak of the First World War. Official records show that Ferdie did indeed serve in France. Confirmation came when I unearthed his campaign medals, also in Mother’s effects: the British War Medal and the Victory Medal, usually awarded as a pair to those who joined the war effort after 1915. Born in March 1899, Ferdie couldn’t have reached his regiment until March 1918 at the earliest; soldiers under 19 weren’t allowed to serve overseas at the time. So there’s no way of knowing whether he faced the German Spring Offensive in 1918 or took part in the battle of Amiens with the Hussars that August. Like so many of his generation, Ferdie never spoke about his experiences. But the happy smile of Private Freeman astride a horse may well provide an inter-generational link that, at least in part, explains Nicole’s love of all things equestrian.

A final unexpected link with my grandfather emerged from Mother’s memorabilia: medals indicating that F.A. Freeman was a member of the Glendale Cricket Club team that won the Victory Cup in both 1925 and 1926. These souvenirs may also explain why he took the trouble to accompany me to select a cricket bat at Jack Hobbs’ sports shop in London’s Fleet Street when I was just 11 – an award from a national newspaper for a bowling feat of no great skill given the quality of the opposition.

Colin was the brother I never really knew. Born in August 1948, he died eight months later and was buried in Manor Park Cemetery, not far from the family home. If there was any direct connection between Mother’s illness and Colin’s death it’s by no means clear. The only clue lies in a consoling letter from her paediatrician noting that it ‘was in some ways a blessing, as [Colin] would not have been a normal child, if he had lived’. There were other letters of condolence among Mother’s effects, including an enigmatic one from her mother-in-law, who ‘could speak with such understanding having had the same experience myself’. I had no inkling of any such disappointment, although it may possibly explain why the younger of Father’s two brothers, Neil, was the apple of his mother’s eye. But I do recall with absolute clarity that my own brother’s loss did cause one particularly sleepless night. I woke up dreadfully upset, concerned that it had been too long since we had visited Colin’s grave, or so it seemed to a 4-year-old. It felt as though we had neglected him, almost eradicated his memory, and I refused to be placated until my parents committed us all to another visit soon. It was to be the last tenuous connection with a sibling of whom I knew all too little.

Chapter 3

A Career Decision – Introduction to a Hero

When I started at Newbury Park Primary School the headmaster was Ken Aston. A tall man, his impressive bearing may well have been a legacy of wartime service as a lieutenant colonel in the British Indian Army, something I knew nothing of at the time. Nor was I aware of his parallel career as an international football referee, best remembered as inventor of the red and yellow card system. Its genesis was an incident during England’s bad-tempered 1966 World Cup quarter-final tie against Argentina. Afterwards, no one seemed to know with any certainty whether Jack Charlton had been booked by the German referee, Rudolf Kreitlein – least of all Charlton himself. He therefore called the press office, where Aston was ensconced as Head of World Cup Referees, to ask whether a newspaper report that he had indeed been booked was true. It was. Driving back to the Football Association’s headquarters at Lancaster Gate later that same evening with Charlton’s confusion still in his mind, Aston’s progress was halted briefly at traffic lights on Kensington High Street. It immediately struck him that a traffic-light-based colour-coding scheme could overcome language barriers and make clear to players and spectators alike that a booking had occurred. Returning home he explained the problem to his wife who promptly prepared two coloured cards that fitted perfectly into his shirt pocket. Thus was born today’s system, adopted for the first time in the 1970 World Cup. As a schoolboy though, the only inkling I had of Aston’s footballing pedigree was when he sent me off during a practice match while on a school camping holiday to Guernsey: less a case of a red card, more of a red face.

It would be wrong to leave these early schooldays without paying tribute to a teacher who drilled into me a lesson that proved a template for life. Mr E.W.W. Fish (one of my less appreciated attributes, along with what might be termed a neatness fetish, is the ability to remember initials), a short, dapper individual with a predilection for three-piece tweed suits and writing in turquoise ink, constantly repeated a single maxim: something worth doing is worth doing well. Not only did he encourage a desire to excel, he also fostered a nascent attention to detail, something that was subsequently to prove both a blessing and a curse. Invaluable in flying terms, it could be an irritant to those blessed with a more laissez faire attitude.

I’m grateful too that the school encouraged neat, Marion Richardsonstyle handwriting – to the extent that a tenth of the marks for any test was allocated for presentation. It didn’t take me long to work out that a legible hand was the route to a few easy marks. Before the advent of computers levelled this particular playing field, I believed strongly that writing neatly and laying out work attractively could influence the reader, and possibly even an examiner, favourably. That was until my first degree submission. Acknowledging a well-presented piece of work, my Open University tutor wasted no time in making clear that style was no substitute for substance; much more would be expected next time. She was right of course. That said, to this day I remain convinced that the manner in which a letter, a paper or an argument is presented can influence the reader/listener, albeit the effect might well be subconscious. Amateur psychology this might be, but it hints at the significance of human interactions, even by proxy as it were, and the outcomes they produce. It’s an issue to which we’ll regularly return, not necessarily to my credit sad to say.

In the mid-1950s, Essex boasted three rival schools in close proximity: Bancroft’s, Chigwell and Forest. My brother and I were fortunate to secure places at the first of these, a Drapers’ Company school, in my case after failing the Chigwell entrance exam. Ken Aston put me forward for a test where I felt completely out of my depth – a chastening experience. All three schools continue to flourish, Bancroft’s itself developing from a middleranking boys’ direct grant school into an independent co-educational establishment rated among the best in the country.⁵ Like its rivals, Bancroft’s encouraged sport and nurtured a lifetime passion for cricket. As a related aside, Forest School was where Nasser Hussain, England cricket captain from 1999 to 2003, honed his considerable talents. And who knows how the career of another Forest cricketer, Geoffrey Wellum, captain of the XI, might have developed had his talents not been diverted elsewhere, to a Spitfire cockpit?

To put this obsession with sport into context, I invited Max Hastings to give the keynote address at a military conference I was contracted to arrange in 2001 when he was still editing the Evening Standard. He replied by letter immediately, politely explaining that to do the task justice would require a good deal of research that could well deprive him of a couple of days’ shooting. Moreover, he would have to charge a fee that in all likelihood would be beyond the organisers’ means. All too aware of the allure of a day in the field and the limited funds available, I thanked him politely and let the matter rest. Years later, in the summer of 2016, we found ourselves chatting in a lengthy immigration queue at Washington’s Dulles International Airport. I mentioned how much I had appreciated his rapid, albeit disappointing response to my request all those years ago. It typified the clarity of his writing on all manner of subjects, exemplified in a later observation of his that ‘few people save sports fanatics find their teens very rewarding’.⁶ Unlike the young Hastings at Charterhouse, at Bancroft’s I fell firmly into the sports fanatics category. With interests spanning any number of outdoor sports and activities over the years, it all began with cricket on the beach at Broadstairs, where paternal grandparents had a home and with Father regularly telling me, ‘It’s time to let someone else have a bat.’ I couldn’t see why at the time, but later came to understand the importance of the lessons he was trying to impart about sportsmanship and indeed good manners – values drilled into me almost daily, values that have remained central to my life.