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Anthony Wheatley
Late Irish Guards
by D M D A Wheatley
formerly Irish Guards
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 My father loved the Regiment, and growing up, there was never any question that I wouldn’t follow him and join The Micks.
From an early childhood that lacked a normal family environment, he went on to adopt two other families as his own. Firstly he joined the Benedictine community at Worth Abbey as a young schoolboy, then Downside where he made numerous friends both among the boys and the monks. This became a life long association with the school and monastery that he truly loved and supported all his life.
Secondly, he joined the Irish Guards family in January 1944, serving with them in Brussels and later Cologne. At the end of the war, he was invited to lead the parade celebrating the liberation in Luxembourg, and took Prince Jean out for dinner that night, both in their Irish Guard uniforms (Prince Jean was a captain).
He was appointed British Adjutant to the American Forces in Biarritz and then after a few months returned to the 2nd Battalion in Hamburg as part of the Army of Occupation. The following year he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was in hospital for over a year. That effectively ended his army career.
He was a proud and staunch Mick, almost never missing a regimental dinner or a St Patrick’s Day parade. It was a source of great pride for him, and the Brigade tie would be routinely packed in his suitcase wherever he went, just in case there was an invitation to drinks at an embassy or dinner at the Captain’s table on the ship or perhaps lunch at the Melbourne Club.
He might have made a terrific monk. Were it not for tuberculosis he would have become a high ranking army officer. But as great as those families were, he embarked on creating his own and for this he needed a miracle. He needed a girl who would see past the moustache and forgive him for his eccentric, Victorian views, his total disinterest in sport and his appreciation of music and art rarely venturing outside the religious. And his miracle was Annette Webb, the greatest thing that ever happened to him and his life long love and companion. Together they brought up their six children in a loving and secure family, his proudest achievement. He sacrificed a great deal to educate us all at Woldingham and Downside but saw it as his most important gift.
He was a very academic pupil at school, but a self-confessed scrum fairy. He must, however, have been quite tough to get into the Marines, and tougher still to leave them and win a unique wartime double commission into the Irish Guards. He still kept many friends from the Marines as well as many from The Micks, and was a generous and frequent host to them.
He was never much interested in joining a corporate business and started his own firm, Luncheon Vouchers, as soon as he could. This had the making of, and indeed became a most profitable company, but he was bought out too early by his main suppliers. There followed various property investments, and then years’ later, when most of his friends were retiring, he found himself in the unlikely role of Chairman of my video games company, keeping us straight and seeing the company through to floatation on the London Stock Exchange, an achievement of which he was immensely proud.
My father always added to the jollity of the office and I remember on one occasion telling him that I was going to see a pop group called Duran Duran to negotiate some music rights. He volunteered to join the meeting, so we agreed to meet the following week in their office reception. When I arrived, I found the blonde receptionist gazing across the room, her mouth slightly open. I followed the direction of her gaze, and there was Pa, pinstripe suit, Brigade tie, stiff white collar, furled umbrella and of course, wearing a bowler hat.
This was, of course, because he was a member of the finest breed of Englishman. A practitioner of a bygone elegant culture. Loyal, unbendingly honest, always immaculately turned out, courteous, generous and thoughtful to others. These men made our country and many of them, too many, defended it and never returned. The gap they left was filled by the sort of individuals whose ideas and loose morals left people like my father almost dispossessed. But he never succumbed to it, and carried on in exactly the same manner as he always had, and that took more strength than one might imagine.
In many fields he was an early version of Google. His general knowledge was vast, with specialist subjects such as the railway system, military history and, of course, the Catholic Church. He adored film, theatre and television. He read two or three books a week, and wrote a large number of letters to all sorts of people, every one of which had to be read and approved by my mother. All his children would receive frequent ‘pastorals’ which were wonderfully written, admonishment and exhortation intricately mixed. Latterly he embarked on a labour of love, writing the biography of Father ‘Dolly’ Rudesind Brookes, entitled The Guardsman Monk.
His legacy filled half the church at his funeral. His 90th Birthday party was held in a hotel at Christmas 2013 and 64 close members of the family celebrated him, his life and his achievements. It was marvellous that Dom Antony Sutch was able to celebrate mass for us all and the party proved to be a fitting tribute and a perfect celebration of the final chapter of a life well lived.
Pa only had about two songs he would ever launch into, one which had the line: ‘Oh the French girls have got something the others have not got!’ but we never heard the next line because it always made him burst into merry peels of laughter.
The other was some old wartime song; he used to sing it softly after reading me a bedtime story: ‘Old soldiers never die, they only fade a way ...’
And on 11th August 2014 at 4.30pm, that’s exactly what he did.
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