10th August, 1941.
Church in the morning. In the evening Bertie Fisher came over to discuss future CO of 17th Lancers, to replace one that had just been killed in an aeroplane accident. (War Diaries, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke)
This brief entry encapsulates the point made by Andrew recently. Alan Brooke was a good man who always made time to do his job conscientiously even on a day off when he would rather have been bird watching in his garden. The accident happened two days previously when the CO was taking part in an exercise with an Army Co-operation Squadron and the aeroplane in which he was being flown (a Lysander III T1742), hit a tree and crashed near Thetford in Norfolk. He was thirty-nine and left a widow and two children.
This tribute was published in The Times on 14th August, 1941.
“G. T. H writes:—
Lieutenant-Colonel H.C.Walford (” Chicken “) joined the 17th/21st Lancers in 1922. He spent the whole of his service with the regiment of which he had just been given command. It is difficult to imagine a more cheerful person and it was impossible to be depressed for long when in his company. Whether he was doing a job of work, playing in an important polo match, or taking part in some minor game, he did it with all his heart. He had a great sense of humour, and his well-known laugh will be missed by many, especially by his brother officers. He was a loyal and true friend who took a delight in helping others. His death leaves a gap in the regiment and our lives which will be very hard to fill.”
Hugh Carr Walford’s grandfather was a successful London solicitor who bought Arlebury Park in Hampshire in 1884. Perhaps because of his death so young and death duties Arlebury was sold in 1944. However, his name is recorded on a war memorial in the village and six years ago was commemorated by Glenn Gilbertson in a remarkable record of the background to all the names on 20th century war memorials from World War I to the Korean War in Alresford and the surrounding district: Not Just A Name. Everything, so far, about Hugh Walford is extracted from Glenn’s book and it’s generous of him to give me permission to use the material he painstakingly gathered.
Hugh Walford’s widow married Brigadier Fowler and had two more children, both successful racehorse trainers. Hugh’s daughter, Sarah, married Sir David Ainsworth, also a successful trainer. His son, Simon, married my sister. Simon served in his father’s regiment (like his father, playing polo) before buying a farm in Co Meath where more than one horse has been in evidence in the fifty-eight years I have known him. He was Master of the Tara Harriers, an amateur jockey, trains steeplechasers and point-to-pointers, was Sheikh Muḥammad bin Rāshid al Maktūm‘s racing manager in Ireland, farms 600 acres, has served the Church of Ireland for more than fifty years and still has time for his wife, children and grandchildren. It is sad that his father did not have the opportunity to live such a long and fulfilling life.