Page 125 - Light Dragoons 2022 CREST

The Regimental Journal of The Light Dragoons
a keen golfer he ensured that the Sergeants’ Mess always beat the officers and fed up with always losing at clay pigeon shooting, he secretly trained his team to beat the officers at that too. Stephen will be hugely missed.
Mr H L Hopkin
Died: 23 Jun 21 Served: 1944-47
Hugh was called up whilst a student for military service joining the Army 17th February 1944. After training he joined the Regiment in the August of 1944 as they were fighting through Europe into Germany. After the war the Regiment were stationed in Wolfenbüttel, Germany where he remained until his discharge. His service was recorded as Exemplary, a competent soldier who always gave his best for the Squadron. A cheerful and popular man who was liked by all. His discharge papers recommended him to any future employer by the Commanding Officer. He discharged in October 1947.
T R Illingworth Esq
Died: 8 Jul 21 Served: 1960-62
Richard Illingworth was a Short Service Commission Officer who served with the Regiment in Malaya and Fallingbostel. He was born in 1940 and after prep school went to Wellington College. At school he was an excellent all-
round sportsman. He best sport was rugby but he also boxed and played cricket well. After leaving Wellington in 1959 he went to Mons to gain his commission. He then, like many of his contemporaries from Wellington, joined the 13th/18th Royal Hussars. He joined the Regiment in Malaya and returned with them when they went to Germany in 1961 and converted from armoured cars to tanks. He served in HQ Squadron and was a member of the Regimental Rugby team.
After leaving the army Richard joined the advertising department of the Sunday Times. He was then offered a job at Rudolf Wolff & Co Ltd, the metals trader. He spent some time working for them in Iran. He left Rudolph Wolff to go to New York where he founded his own small metals trading firm and persuaded Jeremy Rugge-Price, who had been in the Regiment at the same time as Richard, to join him. Whilst in the USA he enjoyed considerable success playing croquet and in 1983 he won the national doubles championship. In 1985 an oppor- tunity arose for him to start a plantation in Costa Rica to produce and export high yielding disease-resistant hybrid coconut seeds. He became an acknowledged expert
on the subject and made many speaking appearances at trade conferences and semi- nars. He also designed or cooperated with national and state coconut programmes in Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador. Richard found out that cricket had come to Costa Rica from Jamaica in the late 19th century and been a popular sport with 46 clubs competing between the wars but had virtually died out after World War 2. Together with some other British expatri- ates he set about reviving it with domes- tic games and international matches against teams from Belize, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Colombia, El Salvador, Falkland Islands, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Peru and Panama. He founded the Costa Rica Cricket Association which became an Affiliate member of the International Cricket Council (‘ICC’) in 2000 and an Associate Member in 2018. For his contri- bution to International Cricket, he received the ICC award of Global Volunteer of the Year in 2005 and the ICC Centenary Gold Medal in 2009. In Costa Rica he met and married his wife Victoria. They had a very happy 35 years together and together they made frequent visit to the UK to see their daughter (also named Victoria), his son Thomas Amrta (from his first marriage to Rebecca Sette, neé Rawlence) and to meet friends from his time in the Regiment and in the City.
Later sustaining a serious injury to his leg, he was told he would never walk again. He was transferred to a top-secret base in Cumbria and made a full recovery. After the war he joined the police in Kent, retiring as a sergeant and moving to the Dales. He was an active member of the British Legion, He attended the 50th and 60th anniversaries of Operation Dynamo. The final parade for Dunkirk veterans took place at St Michael’s Church, Spennithorne in 2010. He was the guest of honour unveiling Lt Col Joe Jordan’s project for a lasting memorial at Catterick Garrison in 2018 and read at the Remembrance Day parade at Leyburn.
C D Lenox-Conyngham Esq
Died: 3 Aug 21 Served 1955-56
Charles was a National Service Officer who served with the Regiment in Wolfenbüttel. Born in 1935, he attended Horris Hill prep school and then Winchester College, where he became a School Prefect. On leaving Winchester in 1953, he decided on National Service before taking up his County Scholarship at Oxford. After gaining his commission, he joined the 13th/18th Royal Hussars and was posted to ‘A‘ Squadron in Germany. The Harz Mountains were only 40km away and he much enjoyed skiing and was a member of the Regimental skiing team that won the Brigade 12km Langlauf competition.
In 1956, he went up to Magdalen College to read Literae Humaniores (Classics). He was an active sportsman and played squash, tennis and soccer. He continued to be a keen squash player for most of his life and also took up hill walking. After Oxford. he took an MBA at Wharton Business School, Pennsylvania, from 1959 to 1960. Charles had a very successful career in the shipping industry, starting with the Blue Funnel Line in Liverpool in 1960, and from 1961 to 1964 in Australia and Singapore. He returned to Liverpool and became Managing Director from 1970 to 1984 as well as being Executive Director of Ocean Transport and Trading from 1972 to 1985. He was appointed CEO of Sealink (UK) Ltd in 1985. He was fer- vent supporter of Liverpool Football Club as well as helping as a volunteer at a Roman Catholic youth club there. He was an excellent host and was also Patron of the annual early music festival, Stour Music, held in All Saints, Boughton Aluph. Kent Alfred Deller founded Stour Music to pro- mote madrigal singing. Charles was also Treasurer of the Avon Foundation, a poets’ organisation, founded by Ted Hughes, and a Trustee of the Cutty Sark Trust from 1996 until 2001. A generous supporter of his local parish church, St George’s in Benenden, Charles was a diligent attender especially at Evensong and at Organ Recitals. He mar- ried Helga Gerrit von Liebach in 1972, who died in 1999, and is survived by a son and a daughter, Patrick and Laura and two step- children James and Ulrike.
Mr D Evans
Died: 15 Jul 21 Served: 1938-40
Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1940. Joining the Army in 1936 as a regular sol- dier and training as a cavalryman, David transferred to a mechanised unit, the 13th/18th Royal Hussars (QMO). Amongst the first to go out to France in September 1939 with the BEF, he did make time get married to Violet first. He saw action against the Germans in both Belgium and Holland in a Bren gun carrier team. Arriving on the beaches he waited three days to be evacu- ated and vividly recalled the period when interviewed some years ago. He said: “The whole area was a mass of rubble, I remem- ber the constant shellfire and the Stukas; they were just like birds dropping from the sky. “I travelled across on one of the small boats, I climbed down, got on board and fell straight to sleep and woke up in Dover.” After landing back in Blighty, David had a well-earned week’s leave before returning to his regiment. The British Army was hastily regrouping, as it was feared Hitler would attempt to invade the country at any time.
David Evans a survi- vor of the June 1940 evacuation at Dunkirk, sadly died at the age of 102. David was rescued under the noses of the advancing German Army by the flotilla of small boats ordered there by
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