Major-General Sir David Thorne KBE CVO
died on St George's Day, 23 April 2000, aged 66

David Calthrop Thorne KBE CVO on 23 April 2000, St George's Day.
Born on 13 Dec 1933 in Hertfordshire, into a family with a long military tradition, he was educated at St Edward's School, Oxford but spent most of his childhood in Tanganyika, where his father served in the colonial police.
Joining the Royal Norfolk Regt as a private in 1952, at a time when every future officer joined the ranks, he was commissioned in 1954.
He saw service in Cyprus during the Eoka campaign, graduated from the Staff College, Camberley, in 1963, and from the Joint Services Staff College in 1967.
After 3 years on the Defence Intelligence Staff, Instructor at the RAF Staff College 1970-72, Sir David took Command in Cyprus of the Bn he had joined 20 years earlier, by then renamed 1st Bn The Royal Anglian Regt.

He later moved with the Bn to Ulster's 'bandit country'. When he commanded 3 Infantry Bde 1977-79 on active service on the border of Northern Ireland, three Grenadier guardsmen were shot dead, Lord Mountbatten was murdered and the Warrenpoint disaster occurred on 27 Aug 1979, when the Army sustained 18 fatal casualties from the explosion of two huge bombs triggered from the Republic. Sir David's acute understanding of terrorist methods greatly contributed to intelligence operations.
In 1981, after the course at the Royal College of Defence Studies, he became the army's youngest Major-General as Vice Quarter Master General, responsible for creating the logistic concept and plans for the Army and Royal Marines during the Falklands campaign. Sir David was the first Commander British Forces and Military Commissioner for the Falkland Islands, 1982-3. An intelligent, energetic man, he maintained morale, tackling with dynamism the task to get long-term defences up and housing all his troops comfortably under shelter before winter arrived. In the process he earned the nickname 'Stakhanov', after the Russian miner held up in the 1930s as a model of unprecedented productivity. Ever mindful of the welfare of the Falkland Islanders themselves he was also noted for the trouble he took to ensure the safety of the local penguins, of which there were between five and six million around the Falkland Islands. 'I love those penguins,' he said, 'and I'll be bloody cross if I hear they've been disturbed by pilots, soldiers or anybody.' Subsequently, he became a trustee of Falklands Conservation. He led the topping-out of Mount Kent radar station, one of three built despite 100 mph winds and almost intolerable logistics. The plaque read: 'Zeus - a routine project for 34 Field Squadron'. In a speech which epitomised his qualities of rapport as a soldier, he said: 'You know, and I know, that it was not a routine task. It was a unique task. We are a particular brotherhood and you have scored yet again.
They called him: 'The man with the spring-loaded salute'. Everything about him was spring-loaded: his physical vigour, his intellectual relish at getting to grips with the detail of a problem and his joy when his team began to get on top of it. When speaking to troops, he struck those who saw him in the field as having more than a touch of Henry V before Agincourt. He was apt to turn up, cheerful as a terrier, anywhere at any time where the going was hardest and most urgent. He was one of the most remarkable co-ordinators, enthusers and inspirers the British armed forces have produced since the Second World War.
His last two appointments were as GOC 1st Armoured Division in BAOR and ultimately as Director of Infantry when he fought a trickle-posting scheme which he knew would undermine a regimental system of obligation and mutual loyalties at the core of the army's cohesiveness on active service. At first, in 1986, he felt virtually isolated on the General staff. 'No senior officers came to my aid. Most were in their tents, polishing their helmets - and looking in the mirror.' He argued his case, partly through two daring unsigned articles in the British Army Review, winning service-wide backing. He won this unpublicised, but convulsive, internal battle to save the infantry's precious regimental roots. He was deluged with letters of gratitude. The victory was decisive: the issue has not subsequently been re-opened.

In a 1988 EDP interview he said a key element in his strategy was the need to provide soldiers with a sense of roots, encouraging pride in the Regiment and the recruiting area to bolster self-respect and morale. 'I also attempted to pass on to the young leaders something which I have learned over the years - that it is achievement that matters, not personal advancement.'
On his retirement, General Sir Jeremy Reilly said: 'I would rate General David as being the outstanding Director of Infantry since the war, without question, and probably of all time.'
At home in Suffolk, in a memoir about his working life, he wrote, 'I have seen enough of leaders under pressure and in crisis to know that many, even with fine reputations, bend with the wind. One always has to guard against giving away any of one's integrity for short term ease or advantage.'
As Director General of the Commonwealth Trust and Secretary General of The Royal Commonwealth Society 1989-1997, he wove another of his 'particular brotherhoods', stretching from Prince Charles to the Commonwealth Secretary General Chief Anyaoku to the chairman of BAT Industries Sir Patrick Sheehy. He raised £10M and saved it from bankruptcy. His time at the helm also saw the establishment of the RCS Commonwealth Centre, a focus for activities in parallel with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London in 1997. From 1998 he was Project Director of the National Skills Festival 2000. Working with and promoting the cause of young people of many races brought him some of the deepest satisfaction of his working life.
An accomplished cricketer, a left-arm spin bowler, he played 22 times for Norfolk 1954-62, playing alongside household names of cricket - like Bill Edrich. He represented the Combined Services and the Army at cricket and the Army and Norfolk at squash. He was President of the Norfolk County Cricket Club 1993 to 1995.
He married Anne Goldsmith in 1962 and was appointed OBE in 1975, CBE in 1979, KBE in 1983 and CVO in 1995.
Sir David was Deputy Colonel of The Regiment 1981-6, Colonel Commandant of the Queen's Division 1986-88, President of The Royal Anglian Regt Association and President of The Royal Norfolk Regt Association from 1998. He was a non-executive director of the West Suffolk Hospitals Trust 1993-97. His hobbies, other than sport, included lepidoptery and writing.
At home in Framlingham, Suffolk, finally, though all too briefly, with his wife Anne and her variable second family of cats, dogs, sheep, Shetland ponies and muscovy ducks which had gone with them on most of their postings, he reflected, 'The lesson I have re-learned is that the best and happiest moments in life come when one is under pressure in a good cause - with just sufficient people to give at least an outside chance of success.'
He achieved one last target, through willpower and the care of his family: to live until Easter Sunday morning, a date fixed for a get-together of friends at his home to raise funds for Macmillan cancer nurses and Framlingham church. He leaves Anne, their daughters Georgina and Laura, and their son Edward, in his Regiment.

Postscript Apr 2002: Edward, recently awarded an MC, will Command 1 R Anglian from Apr 2002. Good one, Edward!

JLR compilation from EDP, Guardian, Times and Telegraph

The Obituary above appeared in Issue 94, Jun 2000 'Britannia and Castle'
On this site is the full text of the 2 addresses, never previously published, and only heard by those present at Sir David's Thanksgiving Service in Norwich Cathedral on 17 July 2000. It was intended to summarise these for publication in the B&C but to edit the 8000 words would have been a travesty.
Click here for the address by General Sir Michael Walker and here for that by Miss Helen Tridgell.
Click here for extracts from letters written to and B&C extracts referring to Major-General Sir David Thorne KBE CVO
Click here for an opening tribute in B&C 94 Jun 2000 to Sir David
Click for a Salute to this unique, special and uncommonly great man - the most inspiring person you could ever know
Click here for a tribute from John Ezard of the Guardian, published in the Dictionary of National Biography

The print version of the Norfolk Section, B&C 94 Jun 00, bore a special header, below. This was unique in the 94 Issues of the B&C and it was not until the death in 2002 of our Colonel in Chief that another header prefaced the Norfolk Section, in B&C 98 Jun 02.