Commando General

by Richard B Mead

  Joe was now aged thirty-three and it was time for him to marry. Numerous beautiful and highly eligible young women had crossed the threshold of Wiseton Hall over the years, but the two to whom he became attracted, Daisy, Countess of Warwick, who had previously been the mistress of the Prince of Wales, and Kitty, Marchioness of Downshire, were both married. He fathered two children by the former, but, after operating a ménage à trois with the latter, successful divorce proceedings by Kitty’s husband forced his hand and he was honour bound to marry her. Born Katherine Hare in 1872, she was the daughter of the Hon. Hugh Hare, himself the younger son of the Earl of Listowel. She had married another scion of the Irish aristocracy, Arthur Hill, 6th Marquess of Downshire, in 1893, and the couple had had three children, Arthur, who was later to succeed his father, Francis and Kathleen, the last of whom was born in 1898.

  Following her marriage to Joe in 1902, Kitty came with Kathleen to live at Wiseton. In the following year the couple’s first child, Christian, was born, followed by Rosemary in 1905. Whilst Kitty was expecting Rosemary she had a terrible motor accident in France, as a result of which one of her legs was amputated. She recovered very fast and refused to allow the disability to alter her life in any way, continuing to hunt, indeed establishing a reputation as a particularly hard rider, and even to play tennis. She also continued to bear children, and her third child, Robert Edward Laycock, was born in London on 18 April 1907.

  Chapter 2

  Bob

  Bob Laycock was born into a life of wealth and privilege. The landed gentry, of which the Laycocks were members notwithstanding their relatively recent social ascent, were the backbone of rural England, although much of their wealth derived from the industrial towns of the Midlands and North. Joe himself certainly maintained a close interest in the Seghill Colliery and the family’s other agricultural and business interests, which he used to visit regularly. He also retained a connection with the artisan skills of his forebears through his keen interest in engineering and, in particular, by working on a lathe which he had installed at Wiseton, on which he turned not only wooden but also ivory artefacts. The rest of the family, on the other hand, were far removed from the lives of those who created their wealth.

  The family continued to grow, with a second daughter, Josephine, always called Joyce, being born in 1908, followed by Peter in 1910 and Michael in 1914. Tragedy struck, however, when the eldest child, Christian, died of appendicitis at Christmas in 1911. Described by his aunt as a ‘darling, intelligent little fellow of eight, with very winning ways’,1 his death came as a great blow to Joe and Kitty.

  Kitty was known to all the children and to others in the immediate family as ‘Anne’, named after a fictional mother rabbit who had so many offspring that she did not know what to do with them. This was an age when upper class mothers spent little time with their children, delegating the responsibility initially to a nanny, followed in due course by governesses for the girls, whilst the boys were despatched to boarding school at the age of eight or nine. This was true at Wiseton as well, but nevertheless this was a close and happy family, with a good deal of social interchange between the generations. Barbara Mitchell-Innes described Joe as ‘the best friend to all of them, boys and girls alike. They all go to him for companionship and fun, as well as for advice, and there is no interest that they don’t share with him.’2 Kitty was decidedly more partial to the boys than the girls.

  From an early age the leisure interests of the children, as with their parents, were centred around horses. Joe kept a very fine stable, and the young Laycocks were taught to ride almost as soon as they could walk. Once they could swing a mallet, they were all, boys and girls alike, encouraged to play polo, but the main interest was in hunting. The nearest hunts to Wiseton were the Grove and the Rufford, since amalgamated, but their countries had largely been given over to the plough and were heavy going in some weathers. Although the family turned out on occasion with one or other of these, their preference was for the largely grass and woodland countries of the Belvoir, the Quorn and the Pytchley, some way to the south. For that reason Joe bought a house in Melton Mowbray, Newport Lodge, which had its own stables and was in constant use during the season.

  Life at Wiseton sometimes verged on the chaotic, as the children, notwithstanding their closeness to their parents, tended to be wild and unruly. Numerous games were indulged in, some of which verged on the foolhardy. On one occasion they made a raft which was floated on the nearby Chesterfield Canal with the youngest, Michael, tied to it. On another, they fired a starting cannon down the drive of Newport Lodge; the wadding, which had been left in the barrel, narrowly missed a lady walking past the gates. Bicycle polo was particularly popular, in spite of the inevitable crashes. There was a menagerie of animals, including a goat, whilst Kitty even kept a monkey. Much of each summer was spent in the north-west Highlands of Scotland, where Joe rented a deer forest, initially at Letterewe and later at Arisaig, for stalking, shooting and fishing. The children were taught to use sporting guns at the earliest possible age.

  In August 1914 the carefree life came to an end, at least for the adults, with the outbreak of war. Joe had kept up his close association with the Army, initially as an officer in the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry. His friendship with John French had endured, as a result of which he became known to many other senior regular officers, and every year he managed to attach himself to the staff of some general during the annual manoeuvres. In 1908 the yeomanry regiments were grouped into fourteen brigades, each of which was to have its own battery of Royal Horse Artillery. The Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry was brigaded with the South Nottinghamshire Hussars and the Derbyshire Yeomanry, and it was decided that a new RHA battery should be raised locally, with the command given to Joe, who was promoted from captain to major. Notwithstanding considerable scepticism in the Army about creating horse artillerymen out of amateur soldiers, Joe set about the task with great vigour, recruiting a battery sergeant major who had served previously as a sergeant in the regular RHA and two other former RHA sergeants to take charge of the orderly room and the riding school. Captain Wilfred Jelf was appointed as Adjutant, an office was acquired in Nottingham and general recruiting began, with a significant excess of applications over places. The officers were all personally known to Joe, many of them hunting friends. He allowed no expense to be spared in achieving his goal, using his own money where necessary to compensate for War Office parsimony. Twelve-pounder guns arrived shortly afterwards, the first camp was held at Wiseton during the following summer and in 1910 the battery impressed with its shooting at camp on Salisbury Plain.

  On war being declared the battery moved initially to Norfolk with the Nottinghamshire Mounted Brigade. Joe himself was asked by French to join the staff of the British Expeditionary Force at Montreuil. The C-in-C was keen to retain him there, but Joe pressed constantly to rejoin his battery and to get it into action. It was not to France that it was sent, however, but to Egypt in the spring of 1915, and Joe went too, carrying a piece of paper confirming that he could return to the General Staff at any time.

  Sent initially to Ismailia on the Suez Canal, the battery endured six months of boredom before being ordered to join the Western Frontier Force, formed to repel an attack by the Senussi, a religious sect in Libya which had been persuaded by the Ottoman Empire to declare jihad against the British. The Senussi had already taken the frontier port of Sollum and were advancing towards Sidi Barrani when a scratch force, consisting of the 15th Sikh Regiment, a Composite Yeomanry Regiment, the Nottinghamshire RHA Battery and some armoured cars was despatched to confront them. A series of engagements took place between mid-December 1915 and 14 March 1916, when Sollum was finally re-taken. Joe’s battery distinguished itself in a number of these, as did the Rolls Royce armoured cars of the Cheshire Yeomanry, commanded by his great friend, the Duke of Westminster. As well as participating in the decisive operation at Agagia, in which the Senussi commander and his staff were captured, Westminster led a darin
g and successful raid to liberate the crews of two Royal Navy ships who had been captured by the Senussi, inviting Joe along for the ride.

  Having spent a brief leave in England, Joe returned to Egypt in May 1916 to be appointed Commander Royal Artillery of the Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division, which was then in the Sinai Desert under Major General Harry Chauvel. The division comprised two cavalry and one mounted infantry brigade, supported by the Inverness-shire, Ayrshire and Somerset Batteries of 18 RHA Brigade. Joe tried to persuade Chauvel to include his own battery in the brigade, but although it was fully engaged in the Palestine campaign, it was as part of another division. The Anzac Mounted Division fought in the victorious battles of Magdaba and Rafa and the first and second battles of Gaza, following which the successful Turkish defence resulted in the replacement of Lieutenant General Sir Archibald Murray as Commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force by Joe’s old friend from the Boer War, Lieutenant General Sir Edmund Allenby.

  Joe, however, was not to serve under Allenby. Instead, whilst on leave in England in May 1917, he was appointed CRA Coastal Defences. Pressing to go to France, he eventually achieved his wish in February 1918. He was given no fixed appointment at first but spent a brief period as understudy to his former Adjutant, Wilfred Jelf, as the CRA of 33 Division. Douglas Haig, French’s successor and another old friend with whom Joe had remained on excellent terms, used him temporarily as a senior liaison officer to General Pershing. In July 1918, now promoted to brigadier general, Joe was appointed CRA of 59 Division, which participated in the great Allied offensive leading to the Armistice on 11 November. After a ‘good’ war, his service was recognized by his appointment as a KCMG3 in the Birthday Honours of 1919.

  Bob’s life, too, had had been subject to great change, but in his case it had nothing to do with the war and everything to do with his education. In September 1916, at the age of nine, he was sent to board at Lockers Park School in Hemel Hempstead. No explanation exists of why the school was chosen, but it was probably on the recommendation of friends. It was certainly a long way from Wiseton, but this was not unusual in an age when parents were not expected to visit their children very often, if at all, during term time.

  The school had been founded in 1874 specifically to prepare boys for entry to Rugby, but by the time Bob arrived it was sending its pupils to a number of the leading public schools. Each of the houses was named after a naval or military commander and Bob was placed in Jellicoe (an admiral then at the height of his fame), possibly because at the time he entertained ideas of joining the Royal Navy. His academic progress up the school was slow at first. In the Summer Term of 1918, after two years at the school, he came first out of a form of twelve in one week and eighth in the next and in the subsequent exams. He was particularly good at arithmetic but, given his lifelong enthusiasm for books, surprisingly weak at English, his good use of grammar offset by poor spelling. In his last year, however, his academic performance was suddenly transformed, and in his final term in the top form he won the form prize.

  He also excelled at sport, playing for the 1st XIs at football in the Autumn Term of 1919 and cricket (as wicket-keeper) in the Summer Terms of both 1919 and 1920. He was a member of a particularly strong cricket side, his contemporaries including Bryan Valentine, who went on to play for Cambridge, Kent and England, and Kenneth Carlisle, who later played for Oxford and Sussex.

  There appears to have been no question but that Bob would follow his father to Eton, where he arrived for the Michaelmas Half in September 1920, being placed in A. E. Conybeare’s House. His academic progress was comfortably above the average for his year, but by no means spectacular at first. He started specializing in Science, with a focus on Physics, at the beginning of his fourth year and in his last year moved to the Army Class, in which the curriculum omitted Classics altogether and concentrated on Maths, English, History and French as well as Science, which would become an abiding interest. Admission to the Army Class was by performance, and the very brightest boys could achieve this from the Removes, a year or more earlier than Bob; but his entry to it was still evidence of good academic achievement.

  The Army Class was designed specifically for those destined for regular commissions via the Royal Military College, Sandhurst or the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, its members sitting the Army Entrance Exam rather than the Higher School Certificate. Most if not all of those in the class were also in the Officers Training Corps, membership of which was not compulsory, even during the Great War. Bob had a very good career in the OTC, becoming in due course the company sergeant major of C Company, where he demonstrated qualities of ‘efficiency, energy, reliability and patience’.4 The Adjutant during his time was Oliver Leese, an Old Etonian on secondment from the Coldstream Guards, who would achieve considerable distinction in the Second World War, during which his path would cross Bob’s.

  Bob continued to show prowess at both football and cricket, appearing frequently in house teams at every level, without ever graduating to the school sides. In football his stature was an issue, the House Football Book in his first term describing him as ‘A wonderful dribbler without much pace. He only came this half and picked up the game very quickly. He is very small.’ Even two years later, when he was already playing for Conybeare’s 1st XI, it was reported that he ‘has wonderful control of the ball, but is very slow and small. He will be very good if he grows.’ Similar comments were repeated until his last year, when the house lost narrowly in the semi-final of the knock-out competition and the post-season comment yet again was that he was a very good dribbler. He did not play really well until the House Ties, when he was brilliant.’

  His stature may have been a handicap for another sport, boxing, but he reached the finals of the school competition as a lightweight. The report in the Eton Chronicle paid testament to his physical bravery. Having won the first round on points, he found himself cornered in the second and was badly shaken by a blow which nearly put him down. Notwithstanding that he was still very shaky, he came out for the third and final round, but was so badly punished that the fight had to be stopped.

  It looked at one time as if he might have an excellent cricket career, not only for the house, having been a member of the Junior side in 1922 which won 13 games out of 14, but also potentially for the school. However, this was not to be. Robert Henriques, who was not himself at Eton but who had been a near contemporary at Lockers Park and knew him very well, wrote an article many years later which places an interesting slant on Bob’s character:

  If he took the game seriously, said his housemaster at Eton, and if he would practise assiduously, he might play for the School at an earlier age than had ever been recorded in its annals. When he heard this, Laycock gave up cricket and took to rowing and he was careful not to excel at this new sport. Why did he behave like this? Because cricket was a game to be enjoyed, not turned into a business to make one’s career.5

  If Bob failed to make the top flight at school sport, he succeeded socially. The two most prestigious groups in each house were the House Debating Society, with some ten to fourteen members, and the House Library, with no more than six. Both were subject to election by the existing members, so provide good evidence of popularity. Bob was elected to the House Debating Society in the Michaelmas Half of 1923, speaking on a number of occasions, including on a motion proposed in February 1924 on ‘Whether it is better to have a large army and navy or a large air force’. He came down decidedly in favour of the first.

  No record of the membership of Conybeare’s House Library has survived for the years when Bob was there. However, it is highly probably that he was a member, as he would otherwise have been unlikely to have achieved election to the Eton Society, or ‘Pop’ as it is more commonly known, a self-perpetuating oligarchy, whose members themselves choose who will fill any vacant places. There are no prefects, as such, at Eton, but members of Pop, distinguished by their coloured waistcoats and checked trousers, amount to much the same thing. The rule
s for election involve the use of white and black balls, contenders for the limited number of places being elected according to the number of white balls, with four or more black balls resulting in absolute rejection. Bob was proposed by the Earl of Feversham in March 1925, but blackballed. He was proposed again by T. A. Pilkington two months later and duly elected.

  Of the thirty members of Pop during Bob’s time, two were to be lifelong friends, Peter Cazalet and Peter Fleming, whilst another, Quintin Hogg, would later become Lord Chancellor. Many of his other contemporaries who were not in Pop would also remain part of Bob’s life or re-enter it at a later date, all of them members of an Old Etonian network whose effectiveness has no equal.

  Bob’s penultimate term at Eton was disrupted by appendicitis. On 28 February he woke up to a terrible pain and was whisked off to Princess Christian’s Nursing Home in Windsor to have the offending organ removed, remaining there for over two weeks. He was visited by a constant stream of friends and remarked in a handwritten diary that ‘I had a case of port and a box of cigars sent to me’,6 so the regime does not appear to have been too rigorous. On 17 March he was picked up by his father’s blue Rolls-Royce and driven to the family’s London home at 47 Charles Street to continue his convalescence.

  Shortly afterwards he was invited to accompany Joe to stay with the Duke of Westminster at Eaton Hall for the Grand National Meeting. During the racing at Aintree, another guest, a Colonel Hound, insisted that Joe should put Bob’s name down for a commission in the Royal Horse Guards once he had passed out of Sandhurst.