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Sir John Conant Bt
Late Grenadier Guards
by Major J P W Gatehouse
formerly Grenadier Guards
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Sir John Conant died peacefully at home in Lyndon, Rutland on 10th January 2024, aged 100. He was the oldest member of the First Guards Club and the last surviving officer to have served in the 5th Battalion during the Italian Campaign.
John Ernest Michael Conant was born at Lyndon Hall, Rutland on 24thApril 1923, into a landowning family and a very different world. The Hall and estate had a large staff and his early childhood was one of largely absent parents, nurses and nannies; his brother Tim later wrote that the brothers ‘saw their parents for tea on Sundays’.
Aged seven, he was sent to Hawtrey’s prep school in Westgate on Sea, Kent; which he recalled later as having no heating and being bitterly cold. He passed his Common Entrance in June 1936 and then went on to Eton, as had his father and grandfather before him. John was still at Eton when the war began, but upon finishing his education in 1941, armed only with his School Certificate, he went to work as a labourer, cutting sugar beet in freezing conditions on Bridge Farm near Downham Market.
Sandhurst soon followed and, in September 1943 and aged 19, he was commissioned into the Regiment and shortly afterwards sent out by troop ship to join the 5th Battalion Grenadier Guards, then based at Hammamet in Tunisia. Shortly after arriving the battalion embarked at Bizerte and set sail for Taranto, on the heel of Italy. During the voyage a particularly observant sailor noticed the name on his battledress and pointed out that, by a strange coincidence, the Officer Commanding the previous voyage had been a certain Major Conant (see note below).
John rarely talked about the war, but some years ago he wrote an account of his time in Italy for his grandchildren. Written in a very matter of fact manner, it is hard at first when reading this to grasp fully what was going on or the extraordinary challenges faced by his battalion. Initially, he was employed as a Liaison Officer to Headquarters 24th Guards Brigade in the beachhead at Anzio, after the landings some 30 miles south of Rome, when many other officers became casualties during the fierce fighting. After six weeks 24th Brigade had suffered severely and was withdrawn by sea during darkness, still under heavy shell fire. He is mentioned twice later in the Regimental History, first when leading a night patrol to establish crossing points over the River Arno on 30th August 1944, when John was told to wade across the river in the middle of the night to find out if the Germans were still defending the opposite bank. They were but, fortunately, they had begun their withdrawal and he wasn’t spotted, so he got back safely.
The next time he is mentioned was when again patrolling to find crossings over the River Setta before the battle to take Monte Sole in mid-October 1944. The water would have been considerably colder by then! On another occasion he stepped on an anti-personnel mine, probably a ‘Bouncing Betty’ S-mine, which jumped into the air but luckily failed to explode. Nonetheless, it appears that he was wounded as there are references to 226 and 132 Field Ambulance in his records, although he never spoke of this. He remained on the strength of the 5th Battalion until the cessation of hostilities and is shown as embarking for home in August 1945. A concise, understated report by Lt Col H R H Davies, his Commanding Officer, dated 9th July 1945, merely states, ‘Lt J E M Conant - a good platoon commander!’
After demobilization, John went up to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge to study Agriculture, one of a generation of undergraduates who had seen active service for whom their school-leaving peers must have seemed very young indeed. He graduated three years later in 1949.
On 16th September 1950 John married Periwinkle Thorp from Kimbolton, and they started farming at Hambleton, a short distance from his parents at Lyndon. One thing that became abundantly clear to the newlyweds was that John’s Cambridge degree in no way prepared him for the practicalities of farming, but fortunately his new wife was eminently practical and knew how to drive a tractor, plough a field and almost everything else that was required to farm. Despite his own lack of practical knowledge, John was determined to learn and utilise the latest farming techniques, taking advantage of the numerous advisory bodies set up under the umbrella of the War Agricultural Executive Committee, commonly known as War Ag. He was heard to say that he ‘was an avid searcher after advice!’ In time, a number of articles were written about him and his progressive approach to farming, including one, ‘Rutland’s Model Farm’ referring to his farm at Hambleton. John himself was active locally, becoming president of the local National Farmers Union and of Rutland Agricultural Society. He served as High Sheriff of Rutland in 1960.
For over twenty years from 1950, the Conants farmed at Hambleton and raised their family, while coping with the tragic loss of their eldest son in a childhood accident on the farm. In the early 1970s, the creation of Rutland Water required the flooding of most of the Hambleton farm and village, and this coincided with John succeeding to his father’s baronetcy and inheriting the Lyndon Estate, where the family moved to farm instead.
After 35 years of marriage, Peri died suddenly on 20th September 1985, aged just 55 and leaving him bereft; but being the person he was, he determined to throw himself into his work and practical interests. In 1991, at the age of 68, Sir John retired to a cottage in the village, handing over stewardship of the estate and farm to his son Edward, and the following year he married Clare Attwater, inheriting two stepsons. Clare and he were married for a further 32 years.
In retirement he attended many Rutland and Leicestershire Grenadier reunions, including one he hosted at Lyndon, and he was very pleased to receive a personal card from HM The Queen as Colonel of the Regiment on his 100th birthday in April 2023.
Throughout his life Sir John Conant embarked on an extraordinary number of activities and interests. All were undertaken with the same enthusiasm to learn and understand everything there was to know about them that he had brought to farming, and resulted in an expertise in every case which lifted them beyond simply hobbies. Amongst his accomplishments were learning French, Italian, and Spanish, photography, fishing, genealogy, poetry, cookery, fly tying, bee keeping, stamp collecting, flying his Cessna 150, gardening, tennis, golf (which he took up at the age of 65) and painting (at 78). In his early 80s he took on a personal trainer who, for the next 20 years, enabled him to keep fit and agile despite failing eyesight, right to the very end.
Sir John died peacefully at home on 10th January 2024 and he is buried in the churchyard of St Martin of Tours, Lyndon, where he had been christened a century before. He is survived by four children, seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Note
This was John’s father, Major Roger Conant. Born in 1899, he had served with the 1st Battalion during The Great War and later became an MP. He was called up in 1939, and although too old for active service, was employed as ADC to the Commander 1st Army and later in the War Office. In 1943 he found himself the role of Officer Commanding North West Ports, as an acting Lieutenant Colonel, responsible for disembarking troops for North Africa. How he came to be aboard a troop ship sailing from Liverpool to Tunisia is unexplained but perhaps predictable! After the War, Roger Conant became Comptroller of the Royal Household, and created 1st Baronet (of Lyndon, Rutland) in 1954. He died in 1973. |
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