Page 136 - They Also Served

were asked to judge a fancy-dress competition and awarded the prize to two young Eurasian girls. Several caste-conscious white planter’s wives on the ship were furious and shunned Coward for the remainder of the trip. Upon finding out that the wives had theatrical aspirations for their daughters, he took literary revenge by writing the song Don’t Put Your Daughter on The Stage, Mrs Worthington.
Returning to the UK, and tired of travelling, Amherst decided to settle down and learned to fly, becoming a commercial airline pilot. During a private charter, he flew a guest to Berlin, where he met Adolf Hitler. He later wrote: ‘The double doors opened and in flounced Hitler. But when he started to harangue us in German, he became ten feet tall – it was very frightening’. In 1940, Amherst enlisted into the Coldstream Guards again, spending much of the war as a staff officer in the Middle East. Post-war, he resumed his career in aviation, becoming a director of BEA (the forerunner of BA) until he retired in 1966.
A hard-working member of the House of Lords, Amherst made his maiden speech in 1935 and his last in 1985. At the time of his death in 1993, he was contemplating returning to speak against the government’s Clause 28, a law prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality. Lord Amherst never married, and the title became extinct upon his death.
130