Commando General

by Richard B Mead

  Another interest, and a long-held one, was food. Wiseton had at one time boasted a French chef called Monsieur Chateauvert, who had been trained by Escoffier and thus set a very high standard, and Bob had thereafter always asked to meet the chef after a good meal, whether in a private house or in a restaurant. One of the former, at which the quality of the fare was guaranteed, was Fairlawne, the home of his Old Etonian contemporary, Peter Cazalet. The chef there at the end of the 1950s and into the ’60s, with whom Bob became friendly, was a young man called Albert Roux, who in 1967 was backed by Cazalet to open Le Gavroche.

  On 10 January 1952, Old Joe Laycock died. The implications were considerable and, from a financial perspective, disastrous. Estate duty was levied on an escalating scale, with the top rate on agricultural property in excess of £1 million set at 44 per cent and on all other assets at 80 per cent. Bob was forced to sell all the land in the north-east except that occupied by the Gosforth Golf Cub, half the acreage around Wiseton and a 179-acre farm in Kent. He was to say subsequently that his total wealth was about the same as his father’s annual income.

  The family did not move permanently to Wiseton, although they stayed frequently and spent much of each summer there. The children adored it, but it was immensely impractical for modern living compared to the Old Vicarage, which, unusually for that time, had central heating. Tilly was by then about to leave school and Joe was at Eton, which was close to Winkfield. Emma and Ben were being educated nearby and the youngest, Katherine Martha, who had been born on 15 May 1949 and was always known by her second name, was still very young. They thus stayed put, whilst Kitty moved down to a house near Reading, where she could easily be visited by Bob and his brother Peter.

  Bob’s continued residence in Winkfield was convenient for one brief but demanding role which he was invited to undertake, as one of the Gold Staff Officers who acted as ushers at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953. It is likely that he was chosen personally by the Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, with whom he had served as a subaltern in the Blues.

  Bob’s sometime residence at Wiseton Hall did result in one prestigious local appointment, as High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire for 1954. In acting as such he emulated both his grandfather and his father, who had held the office in 1878 and 1906 respectively. Although the High Sheriff was the judicial representative of the sovereign, and thus obliged to attend whenever he or she visited the county, in practice the position was largely ceremonial. As it happened, however, events were to dictate that Bob’s year of office would be interrupted by another appointment of far greater significance.

  Chapter 21

  Malta

  One reason for Bob’s frequent visits to London was to attend meetings at the Colonial Office, where he became an unofficial adviser. The precise nature of his role is not known, but it may well have been concerned with the military aspects of decolonization, the pressure for which was fast gathering pace. It is likely that Bob’s involvement came after Churchill’s return to power in October 1951, as he knew many of the members of the new administration, including Ismay, the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, and Alexander, the Minister of Defence, but most notably Antony Head, who had become Secretary of State for War.

  The Secretary of State for the Colonies was another old friend, Oliver Lyttelton, in whose house Bob had recuperated following his forty-one days in the desert and to whom his brother Peter had been Military Assistant. Lyttelton was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Chandos at the end of July 1954 and succeeded by Alan Lennox-Boyd. One question which had been vexing the Colonial Office in the months before Lennox-Boyd took office was the choice of Sir Gerald Creasy’s successor as Governor of Malta. With one brief exception, between 1813, when Malta ceased to be a protectorate and became a British Crown Colony, and 1946, the governor had always been a military man, usually a very senior general at the end of his career. Following the end of wartime emergency powers and the return to Malta of an elected Legislative Assembly, the Attlee Government decided that the time had come to appoint a civilian and selected one of its own MPs, Sir Francis Douglas. Douglas was himself followed in 1949 by Creasy, a longstanding civil servant in the Colonial Office, who had previously been Governor of the Gold Coast (Ghana).

  In the immediate post-war years Malta remained a highly valuably strategic asset of the British Empire, due to its position in the centre of the Mediterranean and its outstanding harbour, used not only by the Royal Navy, but by the navies of NATO. The Colonial Office now concluded that it would be easier for the Governor to deal with the various British and Allied commanders if he had a military background. Moreover, there were some aspects of the political situation on the island which might call for a different approach in future.

  Bob was an obvious choice, trusted by Churchill and Lyttelton and strongly supported by Head, who may well have proposed him in the first place. He was duly approached, and agreed to his appointment for a three-year term. By this time he may well have been tiring of his relatively mundane life at home and looking forward to a new challenge. He had visited the island on three occasions, very briefly in 1941 and for longer stays in 1943 and 1945, and had liked it. Mountbatten was Allied Naval Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, albeit nearing the end of his appointment, and was to be succeeded by Admiral Sir Guy Grantham, with whom Bob had become friendly during the War, so his access to the highest naval and military circles was assured. He was also delighted that 3 Commando Brigade was based on the island. Last but not least, Angie was enthusiastic.

  On 30 July the Queen approved Bob’s appointment, not only as Governor of Malta but as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George. The announcement of his appointment was made on 4 August and Bob was hastily knighted by the Queen at Sledmere House in Yorkshire, on her way up to Balmoral. He had to attend a number of briefings before he left London, which delayed his departure until 19 September. In the meantime, he entered into some difficult discussions with the Colonial Office on the matter of finance.

  Bob had no problem with his salary, which was £4,000 per annum, with an additional duty allowance of £1,500. The entertainment allowance of £500, however, he regarded as quite unsatisfactory, and he was concerned about reports on the condition of the Governor’s main residence, the St Anton Palace, including one from the Queen, who told him that the cold there had been intolerable on her state visit to the island in 1953. His predecessor, a man whose tastes were said to border on the austere, revealed that he had been forced to dip into his own pocket for both entertainment and maintenance, which Bob believed would be beyond his resources. He therefore wrote to Sir Thomas Lloyd, the Permanent Under-Secretary, requesting an increase in the entertainment allowance to £2,000 and permission to submit a report on the St Anton Palace and the Verdala Palace, the Governor’s summer residence. Both the increase in entertainment allowance and an increase in the duty allowance were somewhat grudgingly agreed to, but the question of putting the palaces into good order took longer to resolve. Bob in due course submitted a report which recommended strongly that the cost, which he estimated at £10,000, should be defrayed by the British and not the Maltese Government. To illustrate his point he sent a shabby bedside lamp from the main guest room to Lennox-Boyd, who promised his support, as a result of which the work was eventually carried out, although a number of costs associated with running the palaces continued to fall on the Governor.

  Whilst Martha and the nanny/governess, Lavinia Jenkinson, flew directly to Malta on 18 September, Bob, Angie, Tilly, Emma and Ben flew to Palermo on the following day. In Palermo they boarded the destroyer HMS Saintes1 for the short voyage, arriving in Grand Harbour on the next morning. Bob was greeted aboard the ship by the Lieutenant Governor, Trafford Smith, who had been Acting Governor since Creasy’s departure, the Flag Officer, Malta, and the Prime Minister, Dr George Borg Olivier. Once ashore, he was introduced to the Metropolitan Archbishop, the Chief Justice, Government Ministers and various othe
r dignitaries and was then driven to the seat of administration, the Grand Master’s Palace in Valetta, where he took the Oaths of Allegiance and Office and gave a brief address to the assembled audience. Only then, more than two hours after their arrival, were he and Angie able to drive to their residence, the St Anton Palace.

  In his address Bob said that his immediate task was the achievement of an even closer bond between Malta and the United Kingdom. This was, indeed, the issue of the moment. Borg Olivier of the Nationalist Party had been Prime Minister since 1951, in a coalition government with Paul Boffa’s Malta Workers’ Party. Whilst in London for the Coronation in 1953, he had presented a memorandum to the British Government calling for Malta to become an independent dominion in the Commonwealth. This contrasted with the position of the opposition Labour Party, led by Dom Mintoff, which demanded full integration with the United Kingdom, with seats for the island at Westminster and a transfer of responsibilities from the Colonial Office to the Home Office. Neither option was particularly attractive to the British Government and, with no agreement having been reached more than a year later, Lennox-Boyd paid a brief visit to the island shortly after Bob’s arrival, during which he offered the possibility of three-party talks in London to discuss the issue. The coalition government, however, held the slimmest of majorities in the Assembly and the defection of one of their members led to its losing an adjournment motion, as a result of which a general election was called for 26–28 February 1955. The Malta Workers’ Party did not contest the election, which was won by the Labour Party with 23 out of 40 seats. Mintoff duly became Prime Minister, and the new Assembly was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh on 21 March.

  Bob flew back to England for consultations with the Colonial Office shortly after the election, but for the time being there was no progress on the constitutional questions. He was already deeply frustrated with the politicians, although many other prominent figures in the Maltese community had made him and Angie very welcome. He decided to use his higher entertainment allowance to invite as many of them as possible to events at St Anton. Opportunities to do so presented themselves when distinguished visitors came to the island, including the Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen Mother, the Duchess of Kent, Mountbatten and, only weeks after Bob took up his appointment, Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia. However, Bob needed no excuse to get to know the key personalities, who included Archbishop Gonzi, a powerful figure who was highly political, and one politician with whom he got on well, Mabel Strickland, owner of the Times of Malta and leader of the Progressive Constitutional Party, which had won no seats in the election. He hosted both frequent cocktail parties and, once every three to four weeks during the winter, dinners for thirty-two guests. He was less keen on the latter because of their formality, with guests seated according to the Table of Precedence, whilst his two ADCs were required to ensure that everyone had at least five minutes with him and Angie.

  The ADCs were an important part of Bob’s retinue. The Colonial ADC was Major Walter Bonello, formerly of the Royal Malta Artillery, who provided continuity and was the primary source of local information. Bob’s Personal ADC was chosen by him. When he arrived he inherited as a stopgap a junior Army officer on National Service, who left shortly afterwards. Governors would usually request a young officer from their own regiment, but even before leaving the UK, Bob had told Mountbatten that he thought a Naval ADC would be more suitable. Mountbatten recommended Lieutenant Mark Agnew RN, who had served as a midshipman under him in 1949 and had recently been a watch-keeping lieutenant in HMS Surprise, a converted frigate which was employed in the Mediterranean as the C-in-C’s yacht. Agnew promptly fell in love with Tilly. They were married on 23 April 1955 at St Paul’s Anglican Pro-Cathedral in Valetta and he resigned his commission before the end of the year. His successor was Lieutenant Francis Ponsonby RN, who had been serving locally in HM Submarine Sanguine. He was in the post for a year and was prepared to stay for longer, but Bob thought that this might be prejudicial to his career. As a replacement Bob was offered someone he thought was unsuitable and instead took on Lieutenant David Hall RN, who had been working at the Northwood HQ of the C-in-C Eastern Atlantic. Hall fitted in exceptionally well and continued to work for Bob for the rest of his term.

  The Personal ADC was considered to be part of the Governor’s household and thus lived at the St Anton Palace. The key local member of the household was the butler, and there were other servants, but Bob’s individual requirements were initially looked after by his Royal Marine batman, Sergeant McLeod. After a short period McLeod’s duties, especially keeping Bob’s uniforms in pristine condition, were usurped by Angie’s lady’s maid, Dorothy, who had been with the family since 1950. Described by David Hall as ‘loud and temperamental’,2 she was forceful, but also intensely loyal. The household was completed by Celia Monckton, Angie’s secretary, whilst there was a semi-permanent guest in the shape of a young friend, Minty Yarde-Buller, who arrived on a six-week visit in 1956 and stayed on for eighteen months!

  In the summer of 1955 the family and household decamped to the Governor’s alternative residence, the Verdala Palace. Situated on a ridge, where it was able to enjoy the benefits of a cooling breeze, it was certainly a more pleasant environment in hot weather. However, the shabby state of the palace, the need to take absolutely everything with them, including furniture, and the fact that the children missed the swimming pool at St Anton meant that this practice was not repeated in subsequent years.

  Bob’s political staff were based in the Governor’s Office at the Grand Master’s Palace, where he worked every morning and held all his meetings. Other than Trafford Smith, the most senior British member of the Administration was the Legal Secretary, A. M. I. Austin, who was succeeded in 1957 by D. S. Stephens. The Legal Secretary played a key role in advising on constitutional matters, which were to dominate Bob’s term. The most senior Maltese member of the staff was Lieutenant Colonel Victor Vella, the Secretary to the Government, who was responsible among other things for the smooth running of the Palace, whilst the Attorney General was Anthony Mamo, who was later to become the second Governor-General and then the first President of an independent Malta.

  The Malta Labour Party’s victory in the 1955 General Election led to further calls by Mintoff for integration with the United Kingdom on the Northern Ireland model, in which the British Government would be responsible for defence and foreign affairs, whilst the Government of Malta would deal with all other matters. Three MPs would be elected to represent the island at Westminster. Two ‘Round Table’ Conferences were held that year, in June/July in London and October in Malta. Bob did not attend the first, but was present at the second, at which the large British Government delegation was led by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Kilmuir. The dominant figure was Mintoff, who could be very charming when it suited him, especially when meeting British parliamentarians, but utterly obdurate when it came to negotiation. The talks reached no firm conclusion, but a report was subsequently produced for the British Parliament. In Malta itself, integration was vigorously opposed by the Nationalists and also by Archbisop Gonzi, who believed that the position of the Catholic church would be severely weakened if Malta became part of a country in which the established church was Anglican.

  The British Government was persuaded to agree to a referendum on integration, which was held on 11 and 12 February 1956. In spite of the denunciations of Gonzi and a boycott by the Nationalists, the Maltese people voted 77–23 per cent in favour of integration. However, the turnout was less than 60 per cent, enabling Borg Olivier to claim that those voting against and those boycotting the poll constituted between them a majority. Bob went to London shortly afterwards for a series of meetings at the Colonial Office, in which it was decided that no decision could be taken until Parliament had had time to debate the Round Table conference report. He broke his return journey in Rome, where his primary purpose was to hold meetings in the Vatican with the Papal Pro-Secretary of State, Monsignor Tardini, on the gua
rantees demanded by Gonzi for the Catholic church in Malta. Whilst he was there he had an audience with Pope Pius XII.

  With something of a hiatus on the political front, 1956 was otherwise a relatively quiet year for Bob, during which the attention of the world was largely diverted by the Suez Crisis. Numerous visitors arrived in connection with it, including Head and the CIGS, General Sir Gerald Templer, whilst Grand Harbour was exceptionally busy with naval movements. Mintoff, however, did not endear himself to the British Government by describing the Egyptian leader as ‘my good friend, Colonel Nasser’.3

  The political heat began to rise in the winter of 1956/57, with both Mintoff and Bob visiting London for talks. The Nationalist Opposition withdrew from the Assembly at the end of January 1957 in protest against their exclusion from these talks, only to realize that this had been a tactical error, as they risked being further sidelined. The sticking point in the talks was not the constitutional aspects, on which progress was satisfactory, but the economic arrangements, with Mintoff demanding ‘equivalence’, in other words that Malta’s economy would be brought into line with the United Kingdom over a number of years. This would require an extended period of financial subsidies for social services, new industries and the dockyard, and Mintoff demanded that this should be for twelve years, which was unacceptable to the British Government. The question of the dockyard was to become a particular problem, not least because a White Paper issued shortly beforehand by the Ministry of Defence predicted significant cuts to its work for the Royal Navy.

  Bob had by that time agreed to an extension of his term as Governor by one year to September 1958. Discussions on the subject had begun in the autumn of 1956, as Bob wanted the decision on his successor to be settled early in order to avoid the hiatus of the previous handover, which had not gone down well in Malta. Lennox-Boyd responded with the suggestion that Bob should stay on so that he could introduce the new Constitution, still thought then to be possible within that time frame. Bob agreed, on the condition that Trafford Smith should stay on as well.