Page 175 - RSDG Year of 2023

the edge of the Jebel desert race meetings were organised to sort out deficits in the horse account; shooting or riding in the hills were other leisure pursuits.
The regiment trained in its tanks in the desert, on occasion being afforded live ammunition. The move to Libya brought the regiment into the 25th Armoured brigade then commanded by Brigadier Alan Brown. He and Duggie Stewart did not get on and Brigade training degenerated into an exercise in which the latter demon- strated his ability to outmanoeuvre his superior officer.
The highlight of his time in Libya was the Queen’s visit to Tobruk in May 1954 towards the end of her world tour. By then he had been promoted to Captain, but as his squadron was not part of the guard of honour or parade, was made “security officer” with no clear defined role. In the dress rehearsal for the parade he was co-opted to stand in for Prince Philip.
In early 1955 his uncle Tom died and he inherited Howth, but it took him over a year to leave the army. He had just been appointed ADC to Major General David Dawnay, then commanding 56th London Armoured Division. The General agreed to release him at the end of the 1956 Point to Point season as he was needed to get horses qualified by hunting them in the winter so that the General’s son, Hugh , then serving with the 10th Hussars could ride; a win at the Grand Military Meeting at Sandown resulted.
As he was posted to London he had a far greater opportunity to find a bride, and in February 1957 married Penny Drew who, with her identical blonde sister Flicky, had attracted sufficient press attention for the marriage to be the good news item on the ITN News.
JULIAN MURRAY
Julian was born on 29 October 1958, and went to school at Gilling Castle Preparatory School and Ampleforth. He then read International Relations at Reading University where he joined the University Officers Training Corps (UOTC). The UOTC had an Armoured Car Squadron equipped with Saladin Armoured Cars and this captured Julian’s interest and led to a
lifetime affection of all things armoured. As a mark of their fondness for the Armoured Car Squadron, Julian and a fellow member of the UOTC, Adrian Bradshaw, created a Club, “The Plungers” to enable former Armoured Car Squadron OTC Officers to keep in touch and meet up for dinners and lunches.
They moved to Howth and four children followed over the next eight years. Initially at Howth he concentrated on modernising the farm which was still being managed as it had been before the war, but this was too small to keep up a Big House. In 1973 he opened the first public golf course in Ireland and it was an instant success. To obtain a bar licence he built a small economy hotel. He devoted the next 25 years of his life to building this complex so that at its peak it generated the revenue needed to keep Howth going.
Shooting during the winter and racing in the summer were his principle leisure pursuits. He had a couple of horses in training each year. His best were Place D’Etoile, who won the Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh in 1970 and was a very successful broodmare, and Sweet Farewell who won the Sun Chariot Stakes at Newmarket in 1974.
Both Penny and he were heavy smokers. It never affected his health but Penny developed chronic emphysema and died in 2010. He remarried Meryl Long, nee Guinness in 2011.
In 2019 the family sold the estate because, following the recession in 2010 and a downturn in golf, it was no longer viable. He was able to live on in the Castle till his death. After an active day on 28 October 2023 he watched the World Cup Rugby and went to his bed. After midnight he died. The precise time is unclear- in more than one way the clocks changed.
Julian Gaisford St-Lawrence
While at University Julian passed the Regular Commissions Board and was offered a place in The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. After University he went to Sandhurst and then joined the Regiment in Athlone Barracks, Sennelager as a Troop Leader in B Squadron. Germany was a mix of enjoyable Field Training exercises, parties and sport, includingskiinginAlpbach,inAustria,sailingatKielor Adventurous training in Norway. He then went on the Regimental Signals Officer’s (RSO) course and became the Regimental Signals Officer, working closely with the Commanding Officer, Regimental Second-in-Command, Adjutant and Operations Officer.
Julian was always a good organiser and one summer he decided he wanted a break from Germany so arranged four boys and four girls to have a holiday on the Greek island of Naxos. On the first evening they were sitting
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