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Major Andrew Napier DL
Late Coldstream Guards
by Brigadier Richard Heywood OBE DL
Formerly Coldstream Guards
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Andrew Napier died on 8th June 2025 a month before his 93rd birthday. As a boy he had wanted to join the Royal Navy and left Eton for the Nautical College Pangbourne, which had direct entry to the Navy at the age of 16. He took the Civil Service Exam and failed for the Navy but passed for the Army and was selected as a candidate for the Coldstream. The Navy’s loss was to be our gain. Filling in time before joining the Army he went to learn about sheep farming at Glenshero, near Laggan Bridge in Scotland. He loved it and the huge amount of shooting and stalking, which came his way. After Brigade Squad and Sandhurst, he was commissioned in 1952 and joined the 2nd Battalion at Wellington Barracks. Whilst on a signals course and faced with a question on physics he was asked what an ohm was? He wrote: ‘A little man wot sits on a toadstool’.
He served briefly with the 1st Battalion in Egypt in 1953, became the Training Officer at the Guards Training Camp at Pickering in Yorkshire and served three years with the 1st Battalion in Germany at Krefeld and Hubbelrath. In 1958 he went on loan to the Colonial Office and served with the Aden Protectorate Levies. This served him in great stead for the pinnacle of his Army career, which came when he commanded a Company of 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards on operations in Aden and the Radfan in 1964/5. He was a great natural leader and took endless trouble to look after his guardsmen, who much respected his generosity and loyalty to them. I served in Andrew’s Company as the Reconnaissance Platoon Commander and had only meant to stay in the Army for three years, that I stayed for 37 was largely thanks to Andrew!
He was very sad to leave his Aden Company, and they were equally sad to see him go to the Ministry of Defence, where he did a wonderful job with great humour looking after the Defence Attaches from some 56 Embassies in London. Andrew became an Archer and a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron. In March 1967 he married Anne Gooch in the Guards Chapel; a splendid partnership ensued; Jamie, who also served in the Regiment, arrived in 1968 and the same year Andrew became Regimental Adjutant.
Katharine was born the following year and Andrew celebrated by buying his 56-ton yacht Skomer. He retired from the Army in 1971 and that year the family moved to Kyrenia in Cyprus. After three years out there the Coup occurred, followed by the Turkish invasion. With an injured Turk in front of his house and a wounded Greek in the kitchen things became interesting. With their house virtually destroyed the Napier family were evacuated by HMS Hermes and flown to England. Andrew recently recorded his family’s amazing final days at their house in the hills overlooking Kyrenia harbour. After returning home to England they moved to Suffolk.
Andrew was a Knight of the Order of St John and sword bearer to the Grand Prior. He was appointed Chief Commandant of the Suffolk Special Constabulary in 1977, an appointment he held with distinction for 16 years. He was head-hunted by Matthew Clark & Co for Taittinger Champagne and a splendid partnership flourished for 10 years. He was President of the Suffolk Branch of the Coldstream Guards Association for 12 years. In 2004 Anne tragically died after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease, throughout this time Andrew looked after her beautifully and kept the family going.
Andrew was essentially a ‘people’ person, very caring and with a great sense of humour, fun and duty. He greatly appreciated wide open spaces and hence his love of the sea and Scotland. He was much fitter than some suspected and there was no stopping him over hills; he surprised many up country in the Radfan and on training in the Highlands. Jamie and Katharine and their families have lost a fantastic father figure and many of us have lost a wonderful and most generous friend; we will all retain the fondest memories of a most memorable man, who had a long and fascinating life. The large attendance at his Thanksgiving Service demonstrated how much he meant to so many. |
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