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
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 andbroadcast 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 as 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
...
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www ......
ISBN ......
Designed in .....
Typeset by ...
Printed and bound in Great Britain by ....
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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:
‘In the Shadow of the Himalayas’ 1931.... ‘Edinburgh from the Braid Hills’ 1932 ....
Chronology....
The Denholm-Young Genealogy....
Index....
ILLUSTRATIONS
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
- Map showing Broomrigg, Holywood, Dumfries...
- Urdu Examination Paper 1931...
- Map of Kashmir and the Khyber Pass 1932...
- Map of Nigeria 1935...
- Map of the Battle of El Alamein 1942...
- Map of the chase across Libya 1943...
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: diedaged 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, (née 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
18Hilda, aged 22, 1925
19Hilda at Picktree October 1925
20The RoyalMilitaryAcademy, Woolwich (the official Christmas card 1925)
21The Gentleman Cadet 1925
SECOND PLATE SECTION
22The Second Lieutenant, Royal Corps of Signals, on leave 1928
23Second Lieutentant, Royal Corps of Signals, on leave with his Talbot ‘Benjamin’ 1928
24Mounted on his Irish hunter ‘Inertia’, Bulford, 1929
25In the Riley Redwing 1929
26HMT Lancashire 1931
27Lander’s houseboat, Srinagar, Vale of Kashmir, 1931
28From the ShalimarGardens, with Hara Moukh, the Sacred Mountain 1931
29At ?Upper Topa, Murree Hills, Punjab, 1931? (L to R: ?, Patrick, ?)
30The Autocar magazine: cover April 1932
31The newly qualified doctor: Hilda,July 1932
32FortJamrud, 10 miles from Peshawar2/3 September 1932
33Driving up the Khyber Pass 3 September 1932
34Kandaroo Picket Signpost on the Kabul Road 3 September 1932
35Kandaroo Picket, 2½ miles beyond Landi Kotal, 3 September 1932
36The young paediatrician: Hilda at ?Booth Hall Infirmary for Children, Manchester 1935
37Signals Commander at his desk, Zaria 1935–1937
38Signals Commander, Zaria 1935–1937
THIRD PLATE SECTION
39Rachel Estcourt Kitching c. 1941
40An officer’s billet in the WesternDesert 1942–1943
41HD Desert Signals Office 1942–1943, Interior, A
42HD Desert Signals Office 1942–1943, Interior, B
43HD Desert Signals Office 1942–1943, A
44HD Desert Signals Office 1942–1943, B
45A tactical discussionmid-battle, El Alamein, October 1942 (L to R: Lieut. Colonel ?, Royal Scots Fusiliers, Major General Douglas Wimberley, Patrick, Captain Fraser)
46General 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
47(b) With the General (centre)at the start of the visit
48(c) Escorting the General over to meet the Unit staff
49(d) Presenting his second-in-command to the General
50(e) Presenting his Regimental Sergeant-Major to the General
51(f) Posing with the General (centre) at the site of a cable line
52(g) A further word from the General
53(h) Saluting the General on his departure
54On the Coast Road, 1942–1943
55Men of Alamein 1943 Dust Jacket
56Chief Signal Officer for Lines of Communication behind the 8th Army, Central Italy, May 1944
57Marriage, Kirk Deighton, Yorkshire 16 July 1946
58The senior officer 1947
59Serena Denholm-Young b. 1947
60Geraldine Alyson Denholm-Young 1949–1981
61Piers Anthony Denholm-Young b. 1951
CREDITS
Illustrations in the text (listed by page):
....
Plates:
1–7Photographs by the Editor of the family portraits
8Photograph by J Adamson & Son, The Studio, Rothesay, Bute
9 Photograph by Piers Denholm-Young
10Photograph by W. Crooke, 103 Princes Street, Edinburgh
11Photograph by Fleming, Photographer Royal, Royal Studio, Palmerston Road, Southsea, Hants
12Photograph by ?Ebenezer Denholm-Young
13Photograph by Hilda Denholm-Young
14Photograph by Hilda Denholm-Young
15Photograph by ?Ebenezer Denholm-Young
16Photograph by ?Ebenezer Denholm-Young
17Photograph by ? E. R. Yerbury & Son, 90 & 92 Morningside Road and 48 Coniston Road, Edinburgh
18Photograph by E. R. Yerbury & Son, Edinburgh
19Photograph by Kitty or Molly Cook
21Photograph by E. R.Yerbury & Son, Edinburgh
22Photograph by J. B. Wintour, 141 Bruntsfield Place, Edinburgh
23Photograph by ?Ebenezer or Hilda Denholm-Young
24Postcard by J. B. Wintour, Edinburgh, from photograph by ?an army friend
25Photograph by ?Ebenezer Denholm-Young
26Official Postcard: no photographer named
27Photograph by Patrick Denholm-Young
28Photograph by Patrick Denholm-Young
29?Official Ministry of Information photograph?
31Photograph by E. R. Yerbury & Son, Edinburgh
32–35 Photographs by Patrick Denholm-Young
36Postcard by ? from photograph by ?
37Photograph by ?an army colleague
38Postcard by J. B. Wintour, Edinburgh, from photograph by ?an army friend
39Kitching family photograph: photographer unknown
40Photograph by Patrick Denholm-Young
41Official Ministry of Information photograph, Crown Copyright. B.M. 21456
42–49 Photographs taken on Patrick Denholm-Young’s camera by
?his driver/batman
50–54 Photographs by Patrick Denholm-Young
56Photograph by Studio Cavalieri, Perugia
57Photograph by Marlborough Press, 19 Beauchamp Place, London SW3
58Photograph by Madame ?Caryl Ltd
59Photograph by Patrick Denholm-Young
60Photograph by Eric S. Bramhill, North Street, Wetherby
61Photograph by Hilda Denholm-Young
Matter previously published:
‘In the Shadow of the Himalayas’, The Watsonian, Vol. xxviii, No. 1. (December 1931), pp. 19–22.
‘Edinburgh from the Braid Hills’, The Autocar, April 22nd, 1932 p. 651.
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, SalisburyPlain, 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, M.E.F.51st Highland Division Signals, Middle EastForce,WesternDesert
GHQ, M.E.F.X(i) Branch, General Headquarters, Middle EastForce, 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 published record of the Battle of Alamein and from hisunpublished autobiographical writings have been included to illuminate and complement the letters and to bridge intervals for which no letters survive, and these 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; and to Mark Pottle for so generously assisting with footnotes for the lesser-known military personnel.
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 Michael Butler of the Royal Signals Museum,Valerie Holman, Fiona Hooper and David Brown of George Watson’s College, Celia Kerslake, Anthony Morton and Andrew Orgill of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, Mr and Mrs Mark O’Hagan,Simon Offord of the Imperial War Museum, John Paterson,Frank Payne, Mr Zahir Soonawalla FRCS [sine qua non], and Dr Nicola Warner MRCP.
And I could never have managed to do any of this without the constant encouragement of my brother Piers Denholm-Young.
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 14]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, owned by his family since the 15th century. 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.