Christopher Joll - THE SPEEDICUT MEMOIRS 5

Also by Christopher Joll

Uniquely British: A Year in the Life of the Household Cavalry

The Drum Horse in the Fountain & Other Tales of Heroes & Rogues in the Guards

Spoils of War: The Treasures, Trophies & Trivia of the British Empire

The Speedicut Papers Book 1 (1821-1848): Flashmans Secret

The Speedicut Papers Book 2 (1848-1857): Love & Other Blood Sports

The Speedicut Papers Book 3 (1857-1865): Uncivil Wars

The Speedicut Papers Book 4 (1865-1871): Where Eagles Dare

The Speedicut Papers Book 5 (1871-1879): Suffering Bertie

The Speedicut Papers Book 6 (1879-1884): Vitai Lampada

The Speedicut Papers Book 7 (1884-1895): Royal Scandals

The Speedicut Papers Book 8 (1895-1900): At War with Churchill

The Speedicut Papers Book 9 (1900-1915): Boxing Icebergs

The Speedicut Memoirs Book 1 (1915-1918): Russian Relations

The Speedicut Memoirs Book 2 (1918-1923): Fallen Eagles

The Speedicut Memoirs Book 3 (1923-1930): Some Like it Shot

The Speedicut Memoirs Book 4 (1930-1937): The Unimportance of Being Ernest

THE SPEEDICUT MEMOIRS

The Memoirs of Charles Speedicut

Book 5 (1937-1940)

War or Peace

Edited

by

Christopher Joll

AuthorHouse UK

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2020 Christopher Joll. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/27/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-5262-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-5263-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-5261-9 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

For

Major General Sir Stewart Menzies

After serving time at Oxford University and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Christopher Joll spent his formative years as an officer in The Life Guards, an experience from which he has never really recovered. On leaving the Army, Joll worked first in investment banking, but the boredom of City life led him to switch careers and become an arms salesman. After ten years of dealing with tin pot dictators in faraway countries, he moved perhaps appropriately into public relations where, in this new incarnation, he had to deal with dictators of an altogether different type.

From his earliest days, Joll has written articles, features, short stories and reportage. One such piece of writing led to an early brush with notoriety when an article he had penned anonymously in 1974 for a political journal ended up as front-page national news and resulted in a Ministerial Inquiry. In 2012 Joll wrote the text for Uniquely British: A Year in the Life of the Household Cavalry; in 2018, he published The Drum Horse in the Fountain: Tales of the Heroes & Rogues in the Guards; and, in 2020, Spoils of War: The Treasures, Trophies & Trivia of the British Empire.

Since leaving the Army in 1975, Joll has been involved in devising and managing charity fund-raising events. This interest started in 1977 with The Silver Jubilee Royal Gifts Exhibition at St Jamess Palace and The Royal Cartoons Exhibition at the Press Club. In subsequent years, he co-produced Jos Carreras & Friends, a one-night Royal Gala Concert at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane; Serenade for a Princess, a Royal Gala Concert at the Banqueting House, Whitehall; and Concert for a Prince, a Royal Gala Concert staged at Windsor Castle.

More recently, Joll has focused on devising, writing, directing and sometimes producing events for military and other charities. These include the Household Cavalry Pageant (2007), the Chelsea Pageant (2008), the Diamond Jubilee Parade in the Park (2012), the British Military Tournament (2010-2013), the Gurkha Bicentenary Pageant (2015), the Waterloo Bicentenary National Service of Commemoration & Parade at St Pauls Cathedral (2015), the Shakespeare 400 Memorial Concert (2016), The Patrons Lunch (2016), the official London event to mark The Queens 90th Birthday, and the premiere of The Great War Symphony at the Royal Albert Hall (2018).

When not writing and directing military theatre or editing Speedicut family papers, Joll is a Trustee of The Art Fund Prize for Museums. He is also the Regimental Historian of the Household Cavalry and has written his yet to be published memoires, Anecdotal Evidence, an account which promises to cause considerable consternation in certain quarters.

www.christopherjoll.com

The chance discovery in 2010 of a cache of letters written during his lifetime by Colonel Sir Jasper Speedicut to his friend Harry Flashman, led to my having the privilege of editing and then publishing The Speedicut Papers.

When I sent the last manuscript of the series to my publishers, I thought that would be the end of my involvement with Speedicut. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when shortly afterwards I received through the post the following letter and a bulky, typed manuscript:

Villa Larmes des Russes, Cimier, France, 1st April 2016

Dear Mr Joll

It has come to my attention that you are the editor of the letters of my great-grandfather, Colonel Sir Jasper Speedicut. Consequently, I thought that you might be interested to have sight of the enclosed typescript which is a salacious, probably libellous and hitherto unpublished autobiography written by his late (and illegitimate) son, Charles Speedicut, who was, by coincidence, a close friend of my father.

I inherited the enclosed document on Charles death in 1980 and, as he was something of a black sheep and not spoken of in my family, it has remained unread by me until recently. If you find that it is of interest to you, I might be willing to discuss the terms under which a suitably expurgated edition might be published.

Yours sincerely

Olga Lieven-Beaujambe, Duchess of Whitehall

A cursory glance at the manuscript was enough to show me that, despite the date on the letter, the covering note stated nothing less than the truth. On further reading, it quickly became clear that Charles Speedicut had been involved in as many of the intrigues and scandals of the twentieth century as had his father in the nineteenth

Despite the Duchesss strictures, I have limited my editing to the correction of Charles Speedicuts grammar and spelling, and the addition of historical or explanatory footnotes.

CHRISTOPHER JOLL

www.christopherjoll.com

Colonel Sir Jasper Speedicut, 1st Baronet (1821-1915) m. (1)

Lady Mary Steyne (1828-1855), only daughter of 3rd Marquess

of Steyne; (2) Lady Charlotte-Georgina FitzCharles (1825

1917), younger daughter of the 8th Duke of Whitehall

had legitimate issue