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Alexander Grinling
Late Grenadier Guards
by Captain Jonny Walker
formerly Grenadier Guards
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Alex joined the Regiment in January 1991 after Harrow, travelling around South America and Sandhurst. He was made a Platoon Commander in the Inkerman Company based at Caterham Barracks. He immediately lit up the Officers Mess with his engaging personality, mischievous sense of humour. He was a consummate professional as a soldier with a steely grit which was respected by his fellow officers and soldiers alike.
Based at Caterham he carried out a plethora of public duties and served abroad in Botswana, the USA and the Falklands and Bosnia. He was an excellent Platoon Commander who took his job seriously, he looked after his soldiers well and showed great empathy for the people around him and was principled and determined in all he did. Apart from soldiering he was a great athlete. At one Regimental sports day there was lots of pre-race preparation going on before the start line for the 1,500 metres, people putting on studded running shoes and limbering up, Alex arrived a couple of minutes before the race in his empire builder shorts, boating jacket and brown suede shoes and wondered what all the fuss was about; within in a split second he whipped off his jacket, kicked off his shoes and stepped behind the start line moments before the starting pistol was fired. Barefoot he lead from the start, ran like the wind and passed the finish line with ease. Barely out of breath, Alex won the race, whilst slipping on his boating jacket and shoes; he was heard to say ‘I think it’s time for a Gin and Tonic’.
Alex’s final posting in the Regiment was to Bosnia, as a liaison officer to Spanish forces around the Mostar region, where things were fraught. The Delic Rosso Agreement had just been signed, the British Army team were doing a reasonable job and Alex was always remembered by those who served with him for being ‘as cool as a cucumber’, always calm and determined in an area where some of the very worst fighting and atrocities had taken place.
After Bosnia, Alex, who always had a tremendous urge to travel to places his friends had never heard of, was recruited by Guy Willoughby to work for the Halo Trust as a de-miner. He was sent to the Transcaucasus to be trained by Matthew Middlemiss, a tough Irish Guards officer. In Nagorno Karabakh Alex spent many weeks up in the hills living with rough Karabakhi demining teams, grotty weather and only horrid, boiled pork and cabbage to eat. Any less a man would have jacked it in and headed back to the UK. However, this was Alex, who recounted to me that in his first progress interview with Michael Middlemiss before Michael had a chance to say anything, Alex said “don’t sack me too early, I have told all my friends I would be out here for at least six months”. The tough Irish Guardsman soon warmed to Alex’s humour.
Alex then moved to Angola where he formed an excellent double act with Hugo Clarke in one province, while the other province had four or five Halo expats achieving far less in a much longer period. Kuito, where Alex and Hugo lived was a government held town surrounded by UNITA rebels. Alex’s first job was to access and re train the local de mining teams and also work in UNITA held territory. Testament to his diplomatic skills is that the Halo Trust were one of the few organisations that Jonas Savimbi allowed to work in and travel through the rebel held territory. Alex often recounted a story about his negotiations with a local rebel war lord, shortly after he had received an aid package from his mother in the UK. It contained amongst other things, a case of champagne, six of bottles of Kummel, Christmas cake and a Stilton cheese. To ease negotiation, Alex lubricated the rebel war lord with Kummel and gave him half a Christmas cake. Unlike any other NGOs in the area, he was given a free pass to travel through rebel held territory down to the coastal town of Lobito where the only local R&R was to be had. During his time in Kuito, Alex was to meet the wonderful Marlyn with whom he was to spend the rest of his life.
After Angola, Alex spent a short time in Mozambique before moved to Afghanistan. Guy Willoughby, Alex’s boss in Afghanistan described him as ‘the only man I ever met who had total empathy with Afghans and their respect for him was absolute. He was kind, amusing, hardworking, brave, polite, loyal, had humility in bucket loads, treated all men as equal, never raised his voice or rolled his eyes, behaved as a complete gentlemen, a natural leader’. When the Taliban were first in power, Alex and his senior Afghan Dr Farid led over 2000 deminers with no other HALO foreigners in country. It was the model way of doing things.
Alex went on to become a trustee of the Halo Trust and then he was very proud to be Chairman of the Trustees. He understood what was required to try to rid the world of land mines. A dogged determination to employ as many men and women as possible out in the mine fields, clearing acre after acre of contaminated farm land and raising two fingers at the UN conference circuit and modern management gobbledygook. Under Alex’s chairmanship HALO grew to over 8000 staff with just a tiny HQ.
In 1998, at a time when the first wave of Taliban had taken control of Afghanistan and only a handful expatriates stayed behind, Alex met Michael Cecil and Stuart Bentham at a lunch hosted by William Reeve, at the time head of BBC World Service in Kabul. Very quickly they established a connection with the Grenadiers and in particular Valentine Cecil. With his knowledge of the country and strong management skills Alex was the natural person to take on the role of in-country Managing Director learning about telecoms, with on the job officer training and flexibility being the key elements. Alex took to the job like a duck to water, probably not the best analogy for the desert in a landlocked country! Alex had a great talent of working with the local population, they respected him and he had little difficulty persuading them to follow his ideas. At the time, there were no phone lines across the country, either locally or internationally and even the Afghan Country Code was dormant, so Alex had his work cut out communicating with London until ‘normal service was started, not resumed’!
Alex stayed for many years in Afghanistan and then moved briefly to London before taking up the role of Sales VP for Africa, promoting satellite communications to remote mining companies, government, banks, NGOs and the like, another role to which he was ideally suited. It was that role that convinced Alex and Marlyn to take up residence in South Africa, a country they had both come to love.
Alex is survived by his parents, Michael and Jan, his sister Holy, his wife Marlyn and his dog Sharkie. There are dreadful times when death strikes far too early and snatches the very best away from us; I quote one of Alex’s best friends: ‘Dammit all – but I was blessed and honoured to have known him’.
With thanks to: Dominic Freeland, Guy Willoughby, Hugo Clarke, and Stuart Bentham |
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