The Duke, who’s just turned 90, saved my bacon – twice
One of the great privileges I had as a civilian lecturer at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for 25 years was meeting influential people in the Officers’ Mess. One of them was the Duke of Kent, who turned 90 on 9th October.
The Duke was a military instructor at Sandhurst for two years in the 1970s. I made an awful gaffe when another colleague, Major John Blashford-Snell, tasked me to invite the Duke to a party John was giving – and ask whether he’d like to bring his wife.
I asked the Duke, ‘Would you be able to come with the Duchess of Windsor?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘she’s getting on a bit and now lives in Paris.’
In 1981, John and I were in Sierra Leone on reconnaissance for a scientific expedition, just as the country was celebrating the 20th anniversary of its independence in 1961.
The British High Commission in Freetown gave a reception. The guests of honour were the Duke and Duchess of Kent.
Edward had been the member of the royal family to witness the lowering of the Union Flag there on Independence Day. John and I met the Kents and had a chat on the lawns of the High Commissioner’s residence.
Days later, John and I were at Lungi Airport, waiting for our flight home. Wandering round the departure lounge, I found myself in a small room containing a huge, pyramidal heap of old luggage.
Thinking this unusual, I took out my camera to take some pictures – whereupon security officers marched in. They arrested me for taking illegal pictures, likely to give a poor impression of Sierra Leone.
One on each side, they lifted me off the ground and frogmarched me into the main hall. John saw this, got up and in a stentorian voice said, ‘Put that man down. He is a friend of the Duke of Kent.’
And they did.
