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Captain Christopher Joll
Late The Life Guards
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Christopher Joll, who has died aged 75, was a British military historian, author, and military event organiser best known for directing the British Military Tournament.
Christopher served in The Life Guards, completing four tours of duty in Northern Ireland. Later, he became The Daily Telegraph’s go-to expert on all military matters, with a particular focus on the uniforms, medals and insignia worn by members of the Royal family and service personnel at major state occasions including the Platinum Jubilee, the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, and the Coronation of King Charles III.
His commentary of the Telegraph’s live coverage of Trooping the Colour attracted 1.6 million views, while his narration during the late Queen’s funeral was watched by 1.8 million via the Telegraph website and YouTube page.
Such was the persistent and sometimes pernickety nature of Joll’s corrective missives to journalists unable to tell their Gold Stick from their Silver Sticks-in-Waiting, that the newsroom soon adopted a new word to describe his punchy communiques: a ‘Jollicking’.
Regular Jollickings would be doled out to those confusing rank and regiments, misinterpreting what he described as ‘chivalric accoutrements’ and failing to properly count the number of epaulettes on any liveried shoulder. As the regimental historian of the Household Cavalry, he was particularly irritated by errors relating to The Blues and Royals, Princes William and Harry’s regiment, whom Joll would refer to as ‘Wales’ and ‘Sussex’ respectively.
Ever the Sandhurst-trained gentleman, however, his unapologetic attention to detail never got the better of his impeccable manners, grace and good humour. A self-confessed ‘anorak’, he merely saw it as an extension of his military duty to point out where mistakes had crept in and correct them for fear of ‘a lot of old Colonels who read the Telegraph grinding their dentures over tomorrow’s cornflakes’. Another jollity of the Jollickings was his colourful turn of phrase. For example, the cerebrally challenged would be described as ‘not over blessed in the top hamper’.
Even after being diagnosed with bladder cancer, Joll continued to offer advice from his hospital bed with the proviso that he was undergoing ‘temporary replumbing’ and might be ‘off games for a few weeks’.
Born in Marylebone on 16th October 1948, the first child of Ian Joll and his wife Eileen, née Sykes, Christopher Joll was educated at Oundle before gaining a place at Trinity College, Oxford. However, due to their over subscription of soldiers that term, he ended up at Mansfield College to read law.
He was commissioned into The Life Guards, serving early on in Northern Ireland, where he narrowly missed being blown up by a booby trap car bomb. Once, when he and a colleague entered a church, they were described as ‘two prongs of evil’ by the Reverend Ian Paisley.
Christopher left the Army in 1975 to go into business. Starting his career as an investment analyst at Lazards, he climbed the ladder to serve as a director at Alvis and chief executive at Georgeson & Co. As deputy chairman of GCI Focus, he managed the PR for the development and marketing of the Gherkin, Paternoster Square, Central St Giles, Bow Bells House, Battersea Power Station, and Chelsea Barracks.
He then left to build a portfolio of non-executive directorships with pre-IPO and listed companies, and also turned into a business his long-term hobby of writing and directing events for charities, including José Carreras & Friends (1991) at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
In 2010, through his company, MJ2 Events, he revived the British Military Tournament on behalf of the Army Benevolent Fund, after it had fallen victim to defence cuts. He also masterminded the Household Cavalry Pageant, the Royal Hospital Chelsea Pageant, and the Gurkha 200 Pageant.
A prolific author, he wrote 21 books, including The Drum Horse in the Fountain (2018) with Anthony Weldon, about heroes and rogues in the Household Division, and Spoils of War (2020), about the treasures, trophies and trivia of the British Empire. His Speedicut Saga series chronicled the lives of major historical figures including Rasputin, Adolf Hitler, and Charlie Chaplin.
In 2021 he teamed up with Corrie Mapp, a trooper in The Life Guards whose armoured vehicle ran over an IED while on combat operations in Afghanistan, causing him massive injuries. Their book, Black Ice, describes how, following a gruelling rehabilitation, Mapp won gold in the inaugural Para Bobsleigh World Cup competition in St Moritz in 2014, before becoming the overall World Cup champion in 2018.
Joll’s last book, Bonfire of History, with Penny Cobham, explored the intriguing past of Madame Tussaud’s, where an important collection of historical relics and art, including Napoleon’s underwear and campaign carriage, were lost in a fire at the museum in 1925. He was still contributing to Britain at War magazine and working on a book entitled Royal Bastards when he died.
Christopher’s wit never deserted him and when told it was time to go into a hospice for palliative care, he turned to the nurse and with a wry smile said: ‘What shall I pack?’
An avid schnauzer lover, Christopher lived in Bath, where his interests encompassed everything from cooking Ottolenghi recipes to opera and needlework. He was a dedicated collector of Post-Impressionist pictures, and between 2001 and 2013 he and his partner Philip were responsible for restoring Sham Castle, an 18th-century Gothic folly in Shropshire.
With thanks to The Daily Telegraph
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