Page 90 - KRH Year of 2021 CREST

88 The Regimental Journal of The King’s Royal Hussars 88
Lieutenant-Colonel T. Hope
The Rifle Brigade 1944-46
The Parachute Regiment 1946-48 The Devonshire Regiment 1948-59 10th Royal Hussars (PWO) 1959-69 The Royal Hussars (PWO) 1969-74
Tim Hope was an experienced infantryman before he became a cavalry officer but the six years he spent at regimental duty with the 10th Royal Hussars were probably the most satisfying in his varied military career.
Tim was born in Devon, at Teignmouth, in 1926. His grand- father had been a tea planter in Ceylon. His father, Arthur Trevor Hope, fought in the trenches in the First World War with the Suffolk Regiment and later flew as a Royal Flying Corps observer. Tim was at Repton School where he became
Head of his House and excelled at swimming, sprinting and rifle shooting.
Aged 17, at the end of 1943, he enlisted as a private soldier in the Rifle Brigade. Having obtained a commission he was posted to Germany just as the War in Europe was ending. Seeking excitement, Tim volunteered for secondment to the Parachute Regiment and he served with the 4th Battalion in Palestine for two years as the British Mandate was coming to an end.
He was granted a regular commission in the Devonshire Regiment in 1948 and he served with the 1st Battalion in Malaya, during the Emergency, and then in Libya. After one year in England he was appointed to a staff position in South Korea towards the end of the Korean War and he also spent some months in Japan. There followed two years on the staff of the 7th Armoured Brigade in Germany and a tour in Cyprus. In 1959 the Devons were amalga- mated with the Dorset Regiment and Tim was invited to transfer to the 10th Hussars just before the regiment embarked on a 5-year tour in Germany.
Soon afterwards he met a young doctor called Bridget Hackett through mutual interests in sailing and skiing. They married in Lisburn Cathedral in 1961 as Bridget’s father, General Shan Hackett, was the General Officer Commanding in Northern Ireland at the time. Tim was successively HQ, B and then C Squadron leader and proved to be a very effective armoured sol- dier. C Squadron’s role was to support the Royal Welch Fusileers and Tim established a close working relationship with this APC- borne battalion through a series of autumn exercises.
Tim was a proficient ocean yacht skipper and he chartered a 50 square metre yacht from the British Kiel Yacht Club on several occasions. He also had some success in the show jumping ring. In 1964 the 10th Hussars moved to England for a few months for conversion training prior to an operational and unaccompanied tour in the Arabian Peninsula. The Hopes rented a house at Up Somborne in Hampshire for the duration and Sebastian was born just before Tim flew out to Sharjah.
For the next year Tim was in his element as his squadron was sta- tioned at various remote locations in South Arabia, often in rug- ged terrain and faced by a motley army of rebel tribesmen with aggressive intentions. Working in support of local Arab forces he again proved to be a versatile and resourceful commander.
When the 10th Hussars returned to Europe Tim’s time with the regiment was over. After a short break in England the Hopes moved to Lake Simcoe in Ontario where Tim was an instructor with the Canadian Army at Camp Borden. Alexander was born in Borden in 1967. Tim’s subsequent appointments included a tour in Northern Ireland, one at Lulworth in Dorset and finally with the Royal Wessex Yeomanry in Gloucestershire.
When Tim left the Army after 30 year’s service the family moved to Coberley, near Cheltenham. He worked first for the Country Land Owners’ Association and then for Bolton, Ingham, a Lloyds Underwriter. He was also County Commandant of the Gloucestershire Army Cadet Force. In due course the Hopes moved to Acton Turville. Sebastian died tragically of a brain tumour but Tim is survived by Bridget, Alexander and five grandchildren.
Obituaries
Major FJA Valdes-Scott
14th/20th King’s Hussars 1966 – 1982
Tony Valdes-Scott, who died on 25th January 2021, was born in Chile in 1938, the eldest of four siblings. His maternal grandfa- ther had moved his family tempo- rarily from Kent to Chile in 1932 when, following the Great Depression, the Chilean govern- ment suspended overseas remit- tances of dividends from the fam- ily firm based in Valparaiso. Being a keen horseman, he built himself a fine house just across the river from the racecourse with a con- necting bridge. When his teenage daughter Heather wanted to improve her show jumping skills,
she sought instruction at the nearby cavalry barracks and there she met a fine horseman called Javier Valdes, who was doing his National Service. Concerned at what he thought an unsatisfac- tory liaison, her father immediately sent her home to live with maiden aunts in Kent; but Javier sent her a ticket back to Chile and soon after her return she had her twenty-first birthday and married him.
They set up home in a smart town-house in Santiago with exten- sive stabling and spent the summer months on their farm in the south of the country. All forms of equitation and sport filled the children’s days, with Tony and his brothers excelling at national level, especially on the tennis court. However, the political situa- tion in Chile began to deteriorate in the late 1950s and, concerned that it might follow Cuba’s example, the family moved to England in 1961. When Gen Monkey Blacker and Pat Smythe had visited Chile to represent GB in show-jumping during the previous year, Tony’s parents had met them on arrival and looked after them during their stay. Now, when the family arrived in England and Gen Blacker was Commandant of RMA Sandhurst, the Blackers
JPWF