PATRICK DENHOLM-YOUNG
QUITE A PARTY
LETTERS FROM THE BATTLE OF ALAMEIN
AND THE CAREER OF A BRITISH ARMY OFFICER
1925–1950
Edited by Serena Moore
Additional research · ????
Also by Patrick Denholm-Young
(writing as C. P. S. Denholm-Young)
MEN OF ALAMEIN
SONGS OF SOLDIERS
WILL YOU TAKE MY TORCH?
Under the name of ‘Pat Young’:
Short Stories written for radio broadcast on the BBC:
CATCH ME AN AMBULANCE
FOUL BUSINESS
THE SMALLEST ROOM
For more information on Patrick Denholm-Young’s letters visit:
..... imperial war museum...
QUITE A PARTY
LETTERS FROM THE BATTLE OF ALAMEIN
AND THE CAREER OF A BRITISH ARMY OFFICER
1925–1950
______
PATRICK DENHOLM-YOUNG
Edited by Serena Moore
[?? publisher??]
London
Published by .....
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Letters © Patrick Denholm-Young 201....
Editorial matter © Serena Moore 201....
......
have asserted the right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 of Patrick Denholm-Young to be identified at the author of this work, and Serena Moore as its editor.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out,
or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior
consent in any form of binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition,
including this condition, being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser.
First published in Great Britain in .... by
...
...
...
www ......
ISBN ......
Designed in .....
Typeset by ...
Printed and bound in Great Britain by ....
....
For Piers and Alethea
‘Goodness knows how long this Party will last ...’
[Letter 116, 26 October 1942]
‘I’m a little tired of living like a mole ...’
[Letter 119, 31 October 1942]
CONTENTS
Illustrations....
Conventions and Abbreviations....
Mentions in Despatches....
Preface
Family Background....
Parents and Childhood....
The Young Scot....
The Gentleman Cadet....
The Professional Soldier: Peace....
THE LETTERS
Series 1:
Preface to Series 1....
Woolwich: The Gentleman Cadet 1925–1926 ....
Catterick: The Young Officer 1927–1928....
Bulford:1928–1930....
Series 2:
Preface to Series 2:....
India:1931–1932 ....
Series 3:
Preface to Series 3:
Colchester, Cattrick,Aldershot,
Bordon: 1933–1935....
Hiatus:
Preface to Hiatus:....
Nigeria:1935–1937
Aldershot, Liverpool, York:1938–1939....
The Phoney War / The StaffCollege: 1939–1940....
Brigade Major / 51st Highland Division: 1941....
Series 4:
Preface to Series 4: ....
In Transit....
The WesternDesert: Quite a Party: 1941–1942....
Series 5:
Preface to Series 5:....
Cairo: A written Record:1943....
Series 6:
Preface to Series 6:....
Sicily, Italy, Greece:1944–1945....
Series 7:
Preface to Series 7:....
Catterick, Burma: 1945–1950....
Afterword: 1950–1991 ....
Appendices:
Medals and Decorations....
Chronology....
The Denholm-Young Genealogy....
Index....
ILLUSTRATIONS
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
1 Map showing Broomrigg, Holywood, Dumfries:
(Ordnance SurveyXLIX 1855)...
2 Sample letter: 21 July 1929...
3 Map of Rawalpindi cantonment 1931...
4 Urdu Examination Paper 1931...
5 Map of Kashmir and the Khyber Pass 1932...
6 Map of Nigeria 1935
7Map of the Battle of El Alamein 1942...
8 Map of chase across Libyavery good one on
7th Armoured Division webpage (bookmarked)
FIRST PLATE SECTION
1Greatx5 grandfather: Revd William Veitch (1640-1722), Minister of St Michael’s Dumfries, by the Circle of John Baptiste de Medina (1659–1710): exhibited in the Glasgow Scottish Exhibition of 1911
2Greatx3 grandfather: Dr Samuel Young of Guilliehill and Broomrigg (1701-82), by the Circle of Allan Ramsay (1713–1784);
3Greatx3 grandmother: Sarah, Mrs Samuel Young, (??–??) by the mid 18th Century School
4Great great grandmother: daughter of Dr Samuel and Mrs Young, Sarah Young of Guilliehill and Broomrigg (1741–1824) by the Circle of Allan Ramsay (1713–1784);
5Half-brother to Sarah Young: Madeira Wyne, (??–??), son of Sarah Young (senior) by her previous marriage to William Wyne, by the mid 18th Century School. Died aged 11.
6Great uncle. Colonel John Hamilton Kennedy, (1805–1865), Madras Native Infantry, painted circa 1838, by his brother William Denholm Kennedy (1813–1865)
7Great aunt. Sarah, Mrs John Hamilton Kennedy, (nee Denholm-Young) (1805–1848) painted circa 1838, by William Denholm Kennedy (1813–1865)
8Grandfather. Colonel Samuel Denholm-Young (1820–1910), Rothesay 1863, on retirement fromThe Madras Indian Army.
9Broomrigg 2013.
10Father: Ebenezer Denholm-Young, W.S. (1857–1930) Honeymoon portrait 1899.
11Mother: Margaret Logie Hamilton Edmondston(1865–1936), aged 25 (1890), nine years before her marriage to Ebenezer.
1210 Morningside Place, Edinburgh the Denholm-Young family house 1894–1954: garden front 1906.
1316 Abbotsford Park, Morningside, Edinburgh, (this photograph taken1980).
1415 Rutland Street, Edinburgh, professional address of Ebenezer Denholm-Young W.S.from approximately 1887 (this photograph taken 1966)
15With Margaret (left) and ‘Kenny’, hisnurse/governess (right) c. 1907
16c. 1907. An early interest in wheeled transport!
17Brother and sister as children.
18Captain of the George Watson’s College Lauriston House Rugger 1st XV 1924–1925
19Hilda, aged 22, 1925
20Hilda at Picktree October 1925
21The RoyalMilitaryAcademy, Woolwich (the official Christmas card 1925)
22The Gentleman Cadet 1925
SECOND PLATE SECTION
23The Second Lieutenant, Royal Corps of Signals, on leave 1928
24Second Lieutentant, Royal Corps of Signals, on leave with his Talbot ‘Benjamin’ 1928
25Royal Corps of Signals Red Mess Kit 1928 To follow:
26Mounted on his Irish hunter ‘Inertia’, Bulford, 1929
27In the Riley Redwing 1929
28HMT Lancashire 1931
29Lander’s houseboat, Srinagar, Vale of Kashmir, 1931
30From the ShalimarGardens, with Hara Moukh, the Sacred Mountain 1931
31At ?Upper Topa, Murree Hills, Punjab, 1931? (L to R: ?, Patrick, ?)
32The Autocar magazine: cover April 1932
33The newly qualified doctor: Hilda,July 1932
34FortJamrud, 10 miles from Peshawar2/3 September 1932
35Driving up the Khyber Pass 3 September 1932
36Kandaroo Picket Signpost on the Kabul Road 3 September 1932
37Kandaroo Picket, 2½ miles beyond Landi Kotal, 3 September 1932
38The young paediatrician: Hilda at ?Booth Hall Infirmary for Children, Manchester 1935
39Signals Commander at his desk, Zaria 1935–1937
40Signals Commander, Zaria 1935–1937
THIRD PLATE SECTION
41Rachel Estcourt Kitching c. 1941
42An officer’s billet in the WesternDesert 1942–1943.
43A tactical discussionmid-battle, El Alamein, October 1942. (L to R: Lieut. Colonel ?, Royal Scots Fusiliers, Major General Douglas Wimberley, Patrick, Captain Fraser).(see Letter of 12 Dec 1942) Suggested illustration for Jacket Front Cover
44General Montgomery’s flying visit to the Signals Unit of the 51st Highland Divison at Agheila in January 1943 before the advance on Tripoli: (a) Patrick (right) greets the General (centre) on his arrival. On the left is Major Genera Douglas Wimberley.
45(b) With the General (centre)at the start of the visit.
46(c) Escorting the General over to meet the Unit staff.
47(d) Presenting his second-in-command to the General.
48(e) Presenting his Regimental Sergeant-Major to the General.
49(f) Posing with the General (centre) at the site of a cable line.
50(g) A further word from the General.
51(h) Saluting the General on his departure.
52HD Desert Signals Office1942–1943, Interior, A
53HD Desert Signals Office 1942–1943, Interior, B
54HD Desert Signals Office 1942–1943, A
55HD Desert Signals Office 1942–1943, B
56On the Coast Road, 1942–1943
57Men of Alamein 1943 Dust Jacket
58At G.H.Q. Middle East, Cairo 1944
59Marriage, Kirk Deighton, Yorkshire 16 July 1946
60The senior officer 1947
61Serena Denholm-Young b. 1947
62Geraldine Alyson Denholm-Young 1949–1981
63Piers Anthony Denholm-Young b. 1951
CREDITS
Illustrations in the text (listed by page)
....
(inc the maps).
Plates
[Include here Mrs Hooper’s note about copyright of the article in The Watsonian – and also the school photo.]
38: Official Ministry of Information photograph, Crown Copyright. B.M. 21456
CONVENTIONS AND ABBREVIATIONS
The format of the names, addresses and dates of letters has been standardised and the most common addresses abbreviated as follows:
The ShopThe RoyalMilitaryAcademy, Woolwich,
London S.E.18.
CatterickRoyal Signals Mess, Catterick Camp,
Richmond, Yorkshire
BulfordRoyal Signals Mess, Bulford Camp, Salisbury
Plain, Wiltshire
RawalpindiRoyal Signals Mess, Rawalpindi, N-W. India
Srinagarc/o J. H. Lander, Kashmir Express Company,
Srinagar, Kashmir, and c/o Postmaster, Nassim Bagh, Srinagar, Kashmir.
GulmargGulmarg, Kashmir
Upper TopaRoyal Signals Mess, Upper Topa, Murree Hills,
Punjab, N-W. India
AldershotRoyal Signals Mess, Aldershot, Hampshire.
BordonOfficers’ Mess, The Buffs, Bordon Camp,
Hampshire
51st HDS, MEF51st Highland Division Signals, Middle East
Force,WesternDesert
GHQ, MEF X(i) Branch, General Headquarters, Middle East
Force, Cairo
Editorial changes to the letters consist of correction of the (very few) inconsistencies or errors of date or fact, and cuts only where essential for greater clarity, to avoid repetition, or where material might have a direct bearing on the living.
Extracts from Patrick’s unpublished autobiographical writings have been included to illuminate and complement the letters and to bridge intervals for which no letters survive. Extracts quoted in the Prefacesand editorial headnotes appear italicised and within single quotation marks.
Modern editorial practice has been followed to standardise spelling and punctuation, altering only when this is needed to make the meaning clear.
MENTIONS IN DESPATCHES
I am unendingly in the debt of Henry Hardy of Wolfson College Oxford for an impeccable twelve-year tutorial on the art of editing letters (while we were working together on those of the College’s founding president, Isaiah Berlin O.M.). All errors that have subsequently crept into this volume are, alas, entirely my own work.
I am indebted, too, to Henry Hardy’s co-editor on Volume 2 of the Berlin Letters, Jennifer Holmes, whose professional approach to researching footnotes taught me much.
Nor could this edition have been possible without the superb and patient support of Phil Nixon, Senior IT Officer, Wolfson College Oxford.
Further thanks are due to Fiona Hooper and David Brown of George Watson’s College, .... archivist, Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, Simon Offord of the Imperial War Museum, Mr and Mrs Mark O’Hagan, Frank Payne, Mark Pottle, Mr Soonawalla, Piers Denholm-Young etc etc.
PREFACE
O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Can e’er untie the filial band,
That knits me to thy rugged strand!
from: The Lay of the Last Minstrel
Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)
Family Background: ‘We have [long] been soldiers’[1]
Robore Prudentia Praestat
‘Prudence excels strength’
Denholm-Young is the name of an old Scottish military family, rooted in the district around Dumfries. The Youngs can be traced in that area back to the late 14th century, and before the Reformation provided several churchmen. The first member of the family definitely connected with the burgh of Dumfries was Patrick Young, who flourished there at the end of the 16th century as burgess,[2] surgeon and owner of a seat in St. Michael’s Church.
In 1612 his grandson acquired the merkland[3] of Broomrigg and Guilliehill, long part of the ancient Abbey lands of Holywood, four miles from Dumfrieson the banks of the rivers Nith and Clouden, and so established the family’s early roots as gentlemen farmers. In the nearby Valley of the Cairn Water is the ancient stone circle of the Twelve Apostles, the largest such in Scotland, close to Lincluden Abbey (founded c. 1160 and possibly Cluniac). Nithsdale soils are hard, gravelly and light – ideal for barley, oats, corn and turnips – and the estate was nearly all arable, with some woodland. This was also a prime location for country sports: otter hunting and angling for salmon and sea-trout in the deep pools and beneath the steep banks of the Nith; and fox-hunting and shooting in Nithsdale. ‘Broomrigg’ or ‘the ridge where broom grows’ takes its name from the Common or Scots Broom (Sarothamnus scoparius), the emblematic native perennial with fragrant yellow flowersthat grows well on rough banks and has been used variously for centuries in Scotland.[4]
The modest Broomrigg estate of approximately 640 acres with its farms,[5] woodlands, shootings andplain, stone mansion, with stables and outbuildings, passed down the Young family, including through a marriage with the daughter of Rev. William Veitch (1640–1722), [Plate 1] Minister of St Michael’s Church, prominent Covenanter, and loyal friend of the 9th Earl of Argyll,[6] at whose side he stood when the Earl was executed on 13 June 1685 for his part in the Monmouth Rebellion. In 1776 Dr Samuel Young of Broomrigg and Guilliehill (1701–82), [Plate 2] sometime practitioner of physic attending Colonel Cowcolt’s regiment in Antigua and from 1753 surgeon and burgess in Dumfries, inherited the estate and left it to his daughter Sarah, [Plate 4] and her husband Captain William Denholm of the 63rd Regiment. Captain Denholm was the son of William Denholm of Birkbush, bailie[7] of Dumfries, and his wife Nicolas Dalzell of Fairgirth. Birkbush is a small estate on the Cairn Water (a tributary of the River Nith) a few miles due west of Holywood,and the family may have been descended from the Denholms of nearby Creichan. Of their eleven children, a daughter Elizabeth produced Colonel John Kennedy [Plate 6] and his brother William Denholm Kennedy R.A., Victorian genre painter. Sarah and William’s son, Samuel (1777–1854) succeeded in 1824, when he took the name Denholm-Young, and built considerable additions to the house, only to sell the whole estate in 1838[8] for reasons that are not recorded, but may have stemmed from his having six unmarried daughters to provide for (when he died, aged 77, he had lost his wife and six of their ten children, including five of the daughters) – and built himself a smaller house at Rothesay, Isle of Bute. Broomrigg passed to other hands, and still stands today, in very good heart. Samuel’s son Colonel Samuel Denholm-Young, (1820–1910) [Plate 8] had a distinguished career in the Madras Army. His son Ebenezer (1857–1930) [Plate 10] broke with the family military tradition by training as a lawyer. He married Jessie Woodburn, sister to the Governor of Bengal, and then, after her death during the birth of their son who was buried with her, Margaret Edmondston, daughter [Plate 11] of David Edmondston of Buness, Shetland and practised as Writer to the Signet[9] in Edinburgh. His son was Clement Patrick Samuel.
The family has a strong tradition of service to the community through the professions, stemming from the first Patrick Young. His son James was surgeon, burgess and Burgh Treasurer in 1608; James’s elder son (also James) was also surgeon and burgess, while the younger son John (who acquired the Broomrigg lands), was burgess and Notary Public[10] in Dumfries 1607–12, Clerk to the Commissioners of the Middle Shire in 1622, and Sheriff Clerk of Edinburgh in 1625. The second James’s brother, Patrick, was also a surgeon and burgess in the Dumfries area, with four sons, one of whom, likewise, was a surgeon locally.
The tradition of Army service began two generations later, with Captain Gilbert Young of the Scots Brigade; in the next generation Dr Samuel Young of Guilliehill and Broomrigg (1701–82), a qualified physician, attended Colonel Cawcolt’s regiment in Antigua and then returned to practise as surgeon, and to be admitted a burgess, in Dumfries 1753–64; his son-in-law was Captain William Denholm, whose regiment, 63rd West Suffolk, fought at the capture of Guadaloupe Grand-Terre in 1759 and was on active service in the West Indies till 1764; William’s son, Samuel Denholm-Young of Guilliehill and Broomrigg, was an officer in the 21st Fusiliers, and his son-in-law was Colonel John Hamilton Kennedy of Madras Native Infantry; Samuel’s son was Colonel Samuel Denholm-Young (1820–1910), who served 26 years with the Madras Army in India and the Far East where six of his nine children were born; and two of Samuel’s grandsons, Brigadier Eric Denholm-Young OBE DSO and Colonel Clement Patrick Denholm-Young OBE, [‘Patrick’] served in the 13th Frontier Force Rifles and the Royal Corps of Signals respectively, the latter seeing action as Commander of the Signals Unit of the 51st Highland Division in 1942 at the Battle of El Alamein.
Parents and Childhood
Ebenezer Denholm-Young (1857–1930), eldest son of Colonel Samuel Denholm-Young, was born at Chicacole,[11] the district (now known as Srikalulam) with a fort and cantonment (permanent military quarters) of British India, at the extreme north of the province of Andhra Pradesh, mid-way down the Indian Coast of the Bay of Bengal, in the year of the Indian Mutiny. Four years later his father retired from the Indian Army, returned to Scotland and built a house in Ayr. Ebenezer and his younger brother Archibald (1858–1942) attended AyrAcademy and then GlasgowUniversity, where Ebenezer graduated B.A. He then went on to Edinburgh for an Ll.B., did his articles there in the offices of Mitchell and Baxter, and in 1887 was admitted to the Society of Writers to His Majesty’s Signet. His practice, basedin handsome premises at 15 Rutland Street [Plate 13] in the heart of the capital for the rest of his professional life, specialised in Patent Law, that ancient branch[12] serving those petitioning for protection of their intellectual property in an invention. In 1894 his parents left Ayr and settled in Edinburgh where they bought 10 Morningside Place. The following year found Ebenezer, as a young bachelor, staying at Broomrigg as the guest of the tenants Mr and Mrs William Maxwell Maynard, for the fishing. He married, but his wife died in childbirth in approximately 1896, and so it was that Ebenezer, a deeply upright, good man of strong religious faith (for years an Elder of Morningside United Free Church), who, in his son’s words,[13]‘never forced his faith upon us, but simply lived the life of a truly Christian gentleman’came to parenthood late. In 1899 he married his second wife, Margaret Logie Hamilton Edmondston (1865–1936), daughter of Laurence Edmondston, laird of the Buness estate, Shetland. Ebenezer and Margaret were 46 and 38 respectively when Hilda Margaret was born in 1903; and 49 and 41 in 1906 when Clement Patrick Samuel arrived.
As an infant, Patrick showed most engaging signs of the interest in wheeled transport that would become a lifelong passion. [Plate 15] And he records that his early memories of a childhood in Edinburgh just after the turn of the twentieth century were, characteristically, of cables, horses and vehicles. In his words:‘Edinburgh was a noisy place, for the main thoroughfare carried the old cable tram cars. These ran somewhat bumpily on solid steel rails, but there was also a wide metal slot half way between, and through this you could see the heavy wire cable moving rapidly along on its rollers. It made the very devil of a noise, which only stopped when the machinery was closed down quite late at night after the last tram had reached the depot. Each car had its ‘gripper’ which the driver operated with a large wheel, exactly like a ship’s steering wheel, set in a pillar-box type of capstan on his platform at the front end. On his left were two tall brake levers, similar to those in old-fashioned railway signal boxes. The conductor would signal to the driver by pulling sharply on a stiff wire handle, for all the world like the key of a tin of sardines, just above his head on the rear platform. This action rang a bell above the driver, who turned his wheel in a forward direction. As he felt his gripper close on the moving underground cable, he would ease off the brake with his left hand. The tram would then lurch ahead gathering speed until it was travelling at the same speed as the cable. In cold weather, the driver would then stand there with his feet wide apart and fling his arms across his body, clapping his hands against his sides to keep warm, for there were no glass windscreens in those days. Many times those cables would stop for some reason, for the huge driving machinery at the depot was none too reliable. So the standing excuse for being late in Edinburgh then was “Sorry, but the cars stuck”.’