by Richard Mead
The Staff College Draghounds being led out by Charles Miller, Claude Nicholson and Dick.
Dick on Canute, winning the Military Hunter Chase at Sandown Park in 1933.
Dick in uniform in the mid-1930s.
Dick, Lettice and Rachel Fitzalan-Howard with guides in the Grand Canyon in December 1932.
Dick and Bob painting the garden shed.
Dick and Lettice with Michael and Bob on the beach.
The officers of the 12th Lancers at Tidworth in 1935. They include (from the left): Back: Tony Ware (1) ‘Kate’ Savil (2); Middle: Andrew Horsburgh-Porter (1) Dick Holson (3) Arthur Gemmell (5) George Kidston (7); Front: Frank Arkwright (2) Hugh Russell (3) Paul Hornby (4) Field Marshal Lord Birdwood (5) Dick (6).
Dick standing in front of one of the regiment’s Lanchester armoured cars in the Western Desert in 1936.
Digging a Leyland lorry out of the sand on the desert reconnaissance expedition to Siwa Oasis.
Dick playing polo in the 1930s.
The winners of the Inter-Regimental Cup at Hurlingham in 1936. Dick holds the trophy, followed by Andrew Horsburgh-Porter, George Kidston and Dick Hobson.
Chapter 6
The Adjutant
Dick’s appointment as adjutant took effect formally on 12 December 1921, but it was very nearly a year before he actually took up his duties. In the meantime he had to attend the courses which adjutants were supposed to have passed. The first of these was at the Small Arms School at Hythe, which ran for six weeks in February and March 1922. Formerly the School of Musketry, the purpose of the institution was to teach officers and senior NCOs how to use and maintain a large variety of personal weapons, from pistols to hand grenades.1 Dick was not expecting to enjoy it, but he found it much more agreeable than he had feared. It was in a decidedly inconvenient place on the Kent coast, at least for Dick, who wanted to get in as much hunting as possible at the end of the season as well as to ride at both Cheltenham and Sandown. To enable these activities and to respond to the occasional crisis in his father’s health, there was a great deal of train travel at unsociable hours.
The course at the Cavalry School took much longer, from May to the end of November, shortly after his father had died. For the most part it was at Netheravon House, which included an indoor riding school. This was much more convenient than Hythe, as the 12th Lancers were nearby at Tidworth and Dick could play polo for the regiment to his heart’s content through the summer. However, the School moved later in the year from Netheravon to Weedon in Northamptonshire, where it was amalgamated with the Royal Artillery Riding Establishment to become the Army School of Equitation, and Dick spent the last two months of the course there, eventually passing out third of the twenty students. Strictly speaking he should also have passed a course at the School of Signals, but he was excused as Brinton wanted him back.
Dick took up his new duties on 4 December 1922. The one officer in a cavalry regiment in the 1920s who had to work hard was the adjutant and for this he received more pay than others of his rank. As the right-hand man of the commanding officer, he had to run the organization and administration of the regiment other than its logistical requirements, which were handled by the quartermaster. He was particularly concerned with discipline, both in general and as it related to individuals, and for the appearance of the regiment at parades and inspections, any deficiency being ascribed almost entirely to him. There was a great deal of office work on the regimental books and papers, and he was in charge of the drills and instruction of the young officers and recruits and the operation of the regimental riding school. He also had to accompany the commanding officer on a number of formal visits.
It might be thought so many duties would rule out significant leisure activities, but Dick was to demonstrate this need not be the case. While there were fewer occasions on which he was able to go hunting, he was too valuable to be excluded from the regimental polo team, becoming its captain at the end of the 1923 season, during which a team including Dick and Selby won the Subaltern’s Cup. He also still found time to ride at race meetings – indeed, he won so frequently in 1924 that he was required by the National Hunt Committee to apply for a permit to ride as an amateur against professional jockeys. Although he had to decline an invitation to train for the 1924 Paris Olympics, he was able to showjump on Fox-Trot, coming second in the King’s Cup at Olympia on the same day in 1924 that he won the sword, lance and revolver championship and winning the charger class at the International Horse Show.
It was perhaps small wonder then that, when a new commanding officer was appointed to the 12th Lancers in September 1923, he was advised by the commander of 2 Cavalry Brigade, Bertie Fisher, to change his adjutant quickly as ‘he thinks too much about polo and hunting.’2 Luckily for Dick the new CO, a man of strong character, could be counted on to make up his own mind on such an issue and he and Dick got on exceptionally well from the moment they met. John Blakiston-Houston, known to his friends as Mike and to many others as ‘Bloody’ Mike due to his frequent use of the epithet when roused, was the second commanding officer in succession to join from another regiment, in his case the 11th Hussars, but even more than his predecessor he identified completely with the 12th Lancers. After Rollie Charrington, he was to be the second mentor in Dick’s life and the two men made a formidable team which transformed the regiment into one of the finest of its day.
Houston had no doubts about the professionalism of his subordinate, writing many years later that ‘for Dick, his soldiering came first, and he considered it his duty to set an example of thoroughness and tireless devotion to his profession.’3 This period seems in many ways to have been the making of Dick as a soldier, when he changed from an essentially lighthearted subaltern, more interested in sport than in parades and training schemes, into a consummate military professional. He was still a lieutenant when he began his period of appointment as adjutant and was not promoted to captain until September 1923, but even before then he managed to stamp his authority on those around him. His character fitted well with his new duties. Whilst he had a well developed sense of humour and a wonderful smile, he did not suffer fools gladly and was especially hard on those who had failed to do their homework or could not justify a decision. He had an explosive temper when things did not turn out as he wished and in such circumstances his language could be very ripe, but such outbursts subsided very quickly and he never held a grudge. This aspect of his character was not confined to his professional life. His great friend Willoughby Norrie of the 11th Hussars rode against him frequently and recalled one instance when he beat him by a head in a point-to-point: ‘Dick was not exactly polite! This episode was soon forgotten and we were good friends half an hour after the race and discussed it all amicably.’4
Houston set out to ensure that his soldiers were occupied every minute of the day. There would be no lounging around in barracks as long as he was in command. Within three weeks of taking over, he had them building a regimental football pitch at Tidworth, he and his adjutant setting an example by taking up spades themselves, and when that was ready he volunteered them to Fisher for the construction of a brigade polo ground. This was followed by the institution of a much more imaginative idea, the ‘Bongo Beaker’. After his death at Cambrai in 1917, it was discovered that Lieutenant G. Miller-Brown had left money for a trophy for some kind of regimental competition. His nickname had been Bongo, but the trophy probably owed its full name to its alliterative resonance, as it took the form not of a beaker but of a silver statuette of a mounted lancer. It was awarded every year to the troop which was the best overall in every aspect of military life, from cleanliness and tidiness of the barrack rooms to personal turnout, care of horses and skill at jumping and musketry. Snap inspections took place at frequent opportunities and the effect was to instil a level of keenness and enthusiasm which had hitherto been lacking.
Just one month after his arrival Houston had so galvanized the regiment that Dick was writing in his diary, after seeing his commandi
ng officer’s plans for individual training, ‘Everyone will be busy here this winter.’ Houston read his officers lectures about too much leave and not enough soldiering, followed this up by making it clear that any deficiencies identified by him would have to be addressed immediately and, to the horror of his subordinates, even stopped their prized ‘hunting leave’ when they failed to make his desired grade. By the middle of May 1924, eight months into Houston’s appointment, the Inspector General of Cavalry wrote in his report that the 12th Lancers were the best horsed cavalry regiment that he had ever seen and in September the Earl of Cavan, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, sent for Houston after an inspection of 2 Cavalry Brigade to compliment him on the regiment’s turnout.
Houston’s enthusiasm extended to the practical application of military skills, insisting that the regiment should perform to the highest standard on training schemes and on bigger manoeuvres involving other units and formations during their collective training. He never allowed himself a moment’s rest and was apt to get very tired after two or three days on horseback. On one occasion he had a bad fall down a rabbit hole and became very confused, Dick noting in his diary that he had been ‘an awful nuisance’. Dick told one story about him which also reflected the parsimonious attitude of the War Office at the time.
Of course the ’20s, when I was Mike Houston’s adjutant, were very lean years. The total Army Estimates were only about £45,000,000. After every war there is always a long period of retrenchment. This far more than any reactionary attitude by the Cavalry was responsible for the almost total failure to develop tanks between the two world wars. The only sign of mechanization we had in those days was a troop of Austin scout cars, completely unarmoured baby Austins! We not only still had the prehistoric horse, we were also very short of men. On one exercise from Tidworth Mike Houston suddenly got very excited when he thought he saw a whole enemy division deployed on Chute Causeway, a high down a few miles north of Tidworth. Actually the ‘division’ was a flock of scattered sheep, at this time the infantry was so short of men that many platoons were represented by white flags!5
As well as being short of men the 12th Lancers was also deficient in officers, as two successive commanding officers posted in from outside had demonstrated. These years were to see the admission of a number of new subalterns from Sandhurst, who would become the regimental and brigade commanders of the next war, but there was still a shortage of troop and squadron commanders and a number transferred into the regiment from elsewhere. They included Herbert Lumsden and Hugh Russell, both captains of about Dick’s age who joined from the Royal Horse Artillery in 1925 and became, especially Lumsden, his close friends.
At about this time evidence began to emerge of a new passion in Dick’s life. He took a great interest in the garden at Stowell, which had been transformed from an open field by his grandmother and mother and to which he made a significant contribution even before he lived there permanently. It was at Tidworth, however, and at all the subsequent barracks in which he was stationed during peacetime, that Dick turned the area occupied by the 12th Lancers into a symphony of lawns, shrubberies and especially flower beds. Although he could order fatigue parties to do some of the work, he himself loved to put in bulbs in the autumn and plant out annuals in the summer and, according to his friend and brother officer, Frank Spicer, woe betide anyone who interrupted him whilst he was watering the roses! The regiment won the Garrison Garden Cup two years running and there were many who said that Dick had achieved this feat single-handed.
The pressure under which Dick was now working required him to maintain a very high level of physical fitness. This was not always easy, not just for the lack of available time, but also because he was subject to a number of minor setbacks in his health, notably with his teeth which, typically of a time when diet was less well controlled and water not fluoridized, kept requiring treatment, and with blocked sinuses, which required an operation. His solution was walking. For a man who only had three toes on one of his feet, each missing a joint, and whose doctors had once thought he would never be able to walk properly again, he managed to cover great distances in a very short time, often accompanied by his dog Jeannie, given to him before the regiment left Ireland. On one occasion he walked to Amesbury and back, some 16 miles, after tea early one February, and only a week later walked the 12 miles to Netheravon and back to see a friend at the Machine Gun School.
Another longstanding enthusiasm of Dick’s was for cars and in the mid-1920s he owned an American model, a Buick. Not unusually for the time, the vehicle was not completely reliable, punctures and a tendency to boil over being the most frequent problems. Often accompanied by his soldier servant Eldred,6 who was able to develop some skill with the internal combustion engine as well as with horses, Dick was a good but very fast driver. In order to get to all his engagements he very often had to cover significant distances in a short period of time. An extreme example of this came in early January 1925, while he was staying at Yelvertoft in Northamptonshire to hunt with the Pytchley, but considered it his duty to attend the sergeants’ mess dinner at Tidworth. Having hunted for much of the day he set out at 4.35 in the afternoon, encountering floods on the way but arriving at the dinner at 7.40. He eventually took his leave at 1.30 the following morning, arriving back at Yelvertoft at 4.15 am in time for another full day’s hunting, a journey which demonstrated his commitment both to his regiment, earning the approval of the commanding officer and the sergeants, and to his sport. He did have his share of minor accidents and was absolutely mortified when he hit a young girl who ran out in front of the car in Ludgershall, but she proved to be only suffering from cuts and bruises and he was relieved to hear of her full recovery in due course.
In September 1924, Dick’s three-year appointment was extended for a further year, emphasizing the regard in which he was held by Houston. In spite of his duties remaining undiminished, he was able to continue with his sport and in the summer of 1925 he was chosen, with Selby, for the British Army polo team to meet the visiting American Army team. Unlike Dick, Selby had focused on polo to the exclusion of other equestrian activities and was the better player, with a handicap of 6 against Dick’s 5. He had been the fifth man in the British Army team which had visited the United States in the summer of 1923 and which had unexpectedly lost both its matches. Although the British were keen to avenge this defeat, the same thing now happened again, the home side first losing 8 – 4 in a game in which Dick felt that he and Selby had both played badly, and then 6 – 4 in a very good and close game. The general opinion was that the Americans were better players overall and had also been better mounted.
The period of Dick’s appointment as adjutant drew to a close in the autumn of 1925, Dick receiving a letter from the colonel of the regiment, Field Marshal Lord Birdwood, at that time Commander-in-Chief in India, thanking him for his excellent work. He had something else to look forward to, as the regiment had been warned that it was to go to Egypt in the New Year to relieve the 16th Lancers. Dick was very keen to accompany it, even turning down the offer of a good job at Sandhurst to begin in a year’s time, as he preferred to be abroad for a longer period. Houston decided that he should now command the HQ Squadron, to which end he was sent on a two-month course at the Machine Gun School at Netheravon, as his squadron would include the regiment’s machine gunners. In early December, to Dick’s great disappointment, Houston told him that the 12th Lancers were now unlikely to go to Egypt, but would instead move rather more prosaically to Hounslow.
Though Dick had been a good soldier before his appointment as adjutant, he had blossomed under Houston and learnt a great deal from him. Houston had been a brilliant logistics officer in one of the cavalry divisions in the Great War and was also a master of minor tactics, although Dick felt that he was not measured enough to rise to high command in the field. Houston, for his part, had been immensely impressed with Dick’s work and, very unusually for someone of his rank and position, put him in for an OBE. This
was thought by the relevant authority to be too high an honour for so junior an officer, so Houston resubmitted a recommendation for an MBE, which was duly gazetted on 2 July 1926. It was the recommendation for the OBE, however, which expressed Houston’s opinion most clearly:
This officer has just completed his period as Adjutant, and in my opinion has rendered very valuable service to the Army as a whole by his magnificent example in his zeal for work and his devotion to duty in every way.
He has ably demonstrated how sport of the right and healthy sort can be combined with work. He played in the Army Polo Team against America last year and in no way allowed this to interfere with his duties.
He has just completed a Machine Gun Course at Netheravon where he got a ‘distinguished’ and Colonel Jackson, Commanding M. G. School, writes:- ‘This is the best course I have had since I have been at the School and is largely due to McCreery’s very fine example.’
Chapter 7
Lettice
The 12th Lancers left Tidworth for Hounslow on a very wet day in February 1926, Dick having just received a complimentary letter from Fisher, the Brigade Commander, who had evidently revised his opinion about his fitness as adjutant. The barracks at Hounslow were old and dilapidated and HQ Squadron went into tents at first, as the buildings allotted to it were initially unfit for habitation. The other ranks were on the whole pleased to be there, with the delights of London close at hand. For his part Dick took his new responsibilities very seriously, giving lectures to the machine gunners and the signallers and taking them out on exercises, but he also continued with a full sporting programme. He rode again in the Grand Military Gold Cup, but the 1926 winner was Lumsden, whilst Dick himself came off when Annie Darling shied at a fallen jockey four fences from home.