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Captain J R H Wills
Late Grenadier Guards
by Captain N P H Wills
Grenadier Guards
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 Jeremy (Jinks) Wills, was born in Longparish, Hampshire on 27th January 1955. As was to be a theme of his life, he thrived in the pursuit of outdoor sports winning his colours at Eton as part of the Shooting Eight Boat Club and remarkably for a wet-bob, the Ramblers. Although less successful at hunting (where he and his pony were banned from the local hunt for being ‘a disruptive influence on the other horses’) shooting was to be a mainstay of his life. Fiercely proud of his family it was natural that he would want to follow his father, uncle and brother into the Grenadiers.
Sandhurst was a very happy time for him, maybe rather too good a time. Standing in front of the Company Commander with another Officer Cadet they were informed, ‘Gentlemen, it has come to my attention you are living beyond your means!’ Their mess bill was more than their monthly pay. Lt Col Harry Scott, a lifelong friend, recalls many stories of their time spent there. Most poignant to him was the fact that he, Simon Ledger, Simon Stephenson and Jinks all met their future brides while they were there, a bond that has lasted since their teenage years.
His first tour of duty with the Regiment was in Hong Kong with the 2nd Battalion. This was a mixture of hard slog when conducting border patrols in the jungle balanced with the fun of being based in Hong Kong’s vibrant settings. Two stories stick from this period; one that is probably not for publication featuring a Guardsman coming a cropper while trying to protect his personal effects from leeches and another more printable story involving a patrol to stop Chinese immigrants on the mud flats. As the poor potential illegals hared it away across the mud, the Company Commander (un-named) bellowed, ‘After them lads, follow me!’ before leaping off the hard standing, and with his kit on ending up to his chest in mud. There was much merriment as a Land Rover was called for to haul him out. Jinks adored his time at Shorncliffe teaching on the Junior Leaders’ course. He, Simon Stephenson, and Bernard Hornung lived at Number 1 Sea View Terrace; the fact that the main windows looked straight onto a brick wall led them to call themselves the ‘No View Club’, a photo of which still lives on in Foot Guards messes around the UK. Save tours, his beloved dog Nada went everywhere with him, ‘she never got used to helicopters’ I remember him telling me. According to friends, he was particularly pleased with the way that when she sat her feet angled apart perfectly, only a Guardsman could appreciate that!
Undoubtedly the experience that matured him the most in the Army, other than marrying Ali, was his time spent in Northern Ireland. He deployed on quite a few tours with the most notable being his time as the Second Captain in Crossmaglen where he was Mentioned in Despatches (and also, as was the custom, grew a rather reproachable moustache). This was as a result of an adventurous day out chasing gunmen across the Irish border as part of Op WOTAN, in which he masterminded an enormous ‘come on’ when the Queen’s Company patrolled very openly in Crossmaglen covered by covert OPs on the immediate outside and on the border. Col Alexander Heroys, his Commanding Officer at the time, recalls listening to the excitement on the Battalion net as he spotted an illegal Vehicle Check Point as he was flying overhead. He persuaded the pilot, who happened to be the Commanding Officer of the Army Air Corps Regiment, to give chase despite them being shot at for daring to do so. They followed the fleeing suspects across the border into a farmhouse and then directed the Irish Garda Síochána onto the location. Having done so, they were required to return across the border. It was a courageous thing to have done.
One of those things that set the Foot Guards apart from other units is the close relationship they have with the Royal Family. Jinks served as Temporary Equerry to HRH Prince Philip and also spent time with the Queen Mother recalling one time when, while wearing a great coat in the Chapel Royal she informed him that he looked rather flushed, and that he shouldn’t stand on ceremony and should remove his coat. He feigned decorum in terror of exposing the Mickey Mouse tee-shirt worn underneath.
His last hurrah was as the Subaltern for The Queen’s Birthday Parade of 1983 when he carried out his duties perfectly, as with everything he did. He later confided in my brother and I that just before the parade his brother teased him, ‘Just don’t drop your sword!’ He worried about it all day and when it came to my turn on the parade last year (although less immaculately than him) he forbade my younger brother from telling me the same!
Although he left the Grenadiers in 1984, the Regiment has continued to play a huge part in his life, very much embodying the spirit of ‘Once a Grenadier’. When the opportunity came to help raise money for The Colonel’s Fund by cycling from Wellington Barracks to Waterloo he jumped at the opportunity. Many a person will have, as I do, happy memories of charging across Western Europe alongside him, more than one young officer was tested on the Belgian hills by the sight of him careening past them! He was inspirational to all in his wicked humour and hyena- like laugh. Many a person has commented that to sit beside him was to feel like the funniest and most interesting person in the room, regardless of age or station. A true countryman, he was never happier than with shotgun in hand and dog at his heel be it the finest shoot in the land or a morning of walked up. Generous to a fault you would never see him smiling more than on the very rare occasion you were standing beside him and managed to wipe his eye.
It has always been said that he had three things in life that he truly treasured: his family and friends, his shooting, and his time as a Grenadier. Well before his proper time, he passed away peacefully in his sleep at home in February 2015, surrounded by friends and family, having shot the last day of the season. Few could imagine a better way to go.
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