Page 240 - They Also Served

Remaining in the army after the war, Mather served with the Welsh Guards in Palestine and retired in 1962 as a lieutenant-colonel. After working as a Conservative Party researcher, he stood in the 1970 general election, winning the seat of Esher. To the right of his party, he disagreed with Edward Heath’s decision to join the European Economic Community, campaigned for the return of capital punishment and was a strong supporter of both the army in Northern Ireland and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. His comments became less vocal after Margaret Thatcher appointed him an opposition whip in 1975 and, in 1979, he was instrumental in tabling the vote of no confidence that toppled the Callaghan Labour government.
Appointed a government whip, he reacted to the Conservative panic following the heavy defeat in the 1982 Crosby by-election by remarking, ‘The trouble with these young men is that they have never been under fire’. He held a number of minor ministerial positions before receiving a knighthood in the 1987 New Year’s Honours and standing down at the general election later that year. A soldier at heart, when Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd wore a German overcoat, he growled: ‘The last time I saw anyone wearing a coat like that, I shot him’. Mather published two memoirs during his retirement, the first detailing his time in occupied Germany and the fate of Cossacks and Yugoslavs who had fought for Germany and who were forcibly repatriated to an uncertain future. Sir Carol Mather died in Gloucestershire on 3rd July 2006.
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