Wise old war horse

It is always a delight to drive the country roads of Hampshire to see the man known throughout the army simply as ‘Dwin’ — Field Marshal Lord Bramall. Until quite recently, I was always greeted at the door in person by the last of the Chiefs of the Defence Staff (CDS) who had really seen war — in France and Germany — but today I am met by Paula, his dedicated carer. ‘Can’t get up so easily these days,’ he says as I ‘salute’ on entering his little study. ‘Have a chair — the Eton one or the Rifles,’ he adds, nodding to the cushions bearing the arms of the two great institutions of his early life.

The first time I met Dwin Bramall was in 1984, when he was CDS and I was a young major just out of the Staff College. He came into the directorate of military operations on my first morning as I was reading a tatty file marked ‘top secret’, which I’d found while trying to weed my absurdly overfilled safe.