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Stephen Hastings 1939.
Stephen Lewis Edmonstone Hastings
was born in London on 4th May 1921.
After early years living on his parent’s
farm in Southern Rhodesia, he was sent
to live with his grandmother and was
schooled at Durnford and Eton. With
the help of his doting grandmother
and her chauffeur, he was ‘sprung’
from school on several occasions to
ride as an amateur jockey. He entered
Sandhurst as a gentleman cadet on the
last pre-war course in 1939. He later recalled that the influx of fresh volunteers from the universities, no longer bound by the between-the-wars selection criteria, were, from then on, simply referred to as ‘cadets’. After accelerated training, Hastings was commissioned into the Scots Guards on 31st December 1939. Serving with the 2nd Battalion in the early campaigns in the Western Desert, he clashed with his company commander and applied for a transfer to a new unit being formed by another Scots Guards officer, David Stirling.
Hastings was one of the early members of L Detachment of the SAS, taking part in raids against enemy airfields, for which he was MiD. After being laid low with bronchitis, he was posted to the staff in Cairo and, once recovered, joined the SOE in 1943. After accompanying Operation Torch, the Allied landings in the South of France, he was sent as a liaison officer to Italian partisans. Successfully training and uniting the disparate bands, he eventually commanded a force of over 4,000, which seized and held an important bridgehead over the Po River. Awarded the MC, he served in Austria after the end of the war.
Leaving the army in 1948, Hastings joined MI6, serving in Finland, Paris and Cyprus before being selected as Conservative candidate in the 1960 mid-Bedfordshire by-election. Elected to parliament, Hastings was a committed right-wing back-bencher and member of the Monday Club and 1922 Committee. After a standing ovation for criticising the weak leadership of his party at the 1964 conference, he was never asked to speak again nor offered a ministerial position. His position as an outsider within his party was further cemented when he supported Ian Smith’s white minority
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