Page 118 - The Wish Stream Year of 2022

IAN CARMICHAEL
Ian Carmichael was born in Hull in 1920. Training as an actor at RADA, he
chael acted in numerous reviews and lost the tip of a finger to a slamming tank hatch. By now, he was a staff officer in 30th Armoured Brigade and landed in Normandy on D+10. Taking part in the
made his in 1939. His acting career was interrupted by WW2
stage debut
Rhine Crossing, he then spent the final weeks of the war on mopping up operations in Holland. After service in occupied Germany as part of the ‘30 Corps Theatrical Pool’ entertaining the troops, he was demobbed as a Major in September 1946.
Working at first in stage roles, he graduated to films in the early 1950s, starring in the Boulting Brothers comedies ‘Privates Progress’ (1956) and the trade union satire ‘I’m alright Jack’ (1959) alongside Peter Sell- ars. Moving effortlessly into televi- sion roles, he played Bertie Wooster alongside Dennis Price as Jeeves
and then starred as Lord Peter Wimsey in the adaptations of the Dorothy L Sayers crime novels. After later appearances in TV favourite ‘Heartbeat’ he was awarded the OBE for ser- vices to entertainment in 2003. Ian Carmichael died in 2010.
stage, critical of the war which he thought was unnecessary. Posted to 7th Battalion The Buffs, stationed in the UK, he stood for parliament in three by-elections; at Glasgow Cathcart in April 1942, he polled 21% of the vote, at Windsor in June 42%, but in Clay Cross in March 1944, he lost his deposit. 7th Buffs converted to armour as 141st Regiment Royal Armoured Corps and landed in Europe soon after D-Day.
In September 1944 the allies surrounded the port of Le Havre with an intense bombing raid planned as the precursor to the ground attack. The German commander asked to evacuate the French civilians, but this was refused. Douglas- Home was a liaison officer and, when he learnt of this, refused to take part in the attack citing his objections as: the allies unconditional surrender policy forced Germans to fight to the end and the refusal to evacuate the civilians was mor- ally indefensible. Placed under ‘supervision’, a sort of open arrest, he wrote to the Maidenhead Advertiser stating his objections and when the letter was published, he was court- martialled.
and he initially served as a Trooper
in the Royal Armoured Corps
before being selected for officer
training in late 1940. Like so many
of his generation, he looked back
fondly on his time at The Academy,
even though his tank basic train-
ing took place in soft skin trucks.
He recalled in his autobiography:
“If you were the tank commander
you stood in the back of the truck
shouting ‘Driver, left’ and ‘Driver,
right’ as he progressed along the King’s highway, unable to go anything but straight on.”
Commissioned in March 1941 he joined the newly-formed 22nd Dragoons. Three years of home service followed during which time Carmi-
WILLIAM DOUGLAS-HOME
The Hon William Douglas-Home was born in Edinburgh in 1912, the third son of the 13th Earl of Home and younger brother to Alec, who was Prime Minister 1963-64. Educated at Eton, he read history at New College Oxford before embarking on an acting career, which came to an abrupt end when the head of RADA described his aristocratic voice as that of ‘a constipated Bishop’. He wrote his first play while at Eton, a short story about a housemaster, murdered by his pupils, which was only produced after the headmaster’s son was cast in the leading role. In the late 1930s, Douglas-Home toured with various stage companies assisting with script writing.
Conscripted into the Army in July 1940, he served with The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regi- ment) before being commissioned from Sand- hurst in March 1941, one of the course of cadets who survived the bombing of New Col- lege on the night of 29 January. One of his fel- low cadets, the future General Sir David Fraser, described how Douglas-Home was, even at this
If you were the tank commander you stood in the back of the truck shouting ‘Driver, left’ and ‘Driver, right’
as he progressed along the King’s highway, unable to go anything but straight on.
116 HISTORICAL