
Obituary for Colonel Chris Dale
Chris was born in 1931 to a service family. After St Edward’s School Oxford, he went straight to Sandhurst and then to the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment. The friends he made there, particularly as a Platoon Commander in Goslar, in the Harz Mountains and in Berlin, stayed with him all his life. In 1955 he was posted to the Regiment’s depot in Lincoln, where the Regiment was very march part of local life and where he met Simone. They were married in 1957.
They were posted immediately after their marriage to Malaya where the 1st Battalion was on operations during the Emergency and Chris was the Signals Officer. They stayed with the Regiment as it moved from Malaya to Minden in Germany. And Dominique was born in the British Military Hospital. From the British Army on the Rhine, the young Dale family moved to Bury St Edmunds where Chris was Adjutant of the East Anglia Brigade Depot. Nicholas arrived there in 1961.
Chris’s next job was in HQ Far Eastern Land Forces in Singapore, which was accompanied, but the young family’s peace was interrupted by Chris’s short notice unaccompanied active service in Brunei, during the Emergency, for which he was Mentioned in Dispatches.
After two years of formal training at the Royal Military College of Science and at the Staff College, it was back to intelligence with two years at the School of Military Intelligence before returning to Suffolk to Command a Company in the 2nd Battalion, who were then based in Felixstowe. Following two years of teaching leadership to Officer Cadets at Mons, Chris was off again to Singapore, this time unaccompanied. On his return he was commuting for two years from Suffolk to the MOD in London where he worked in Defence Intelligence and learned to speak Arabic.
With Dee and Nick both in their early teens, it must have been a difficult decision to go on loan service to the Sultan of Oman’s army to command a Regiment, The Desert Regiment at war for two years. There were many fellow Royal Anglians serving during the Omani war, including their former CO, John Akehurst, now their Brigade Commander.
For his next two postings as Defence Attache in Manilla and then Jedda, Chris had to learn another language, Tagalog and then really get his Arabic up to speed for Jedda. Unsurprisingly both the diplomatic-military role, and the lifestyle in Saudi Arabia for three years were challenging. Chris’s last job in the Army was as the Defence Advisor in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. For the first time in his career, he was posted to a job, which was not terribly busy or challenging so he resigned and came home.
Wasting no time finding a useful job, he ran the headquarters of a middle eastern owned Shipping Agency in Regents Park. But now, there was absolutely no commuting or separation. Then with Regimental Headquarters just half an hour from home, it was no surprise when Chris swapped London Town for the City of Bury St Edmunds. Chris was Regimental Secretary for Gen Sir John Akehurst and Maj Gen Patrick Stone. They, and many others appreciated Chris’s elegant, honest and straightforward advice. The main Regimental events then were the merging of the 3rd Battalion, the Presentation of Colours and the early work on our Regimental Museum. He really enjoyed serving the Regiment for another for eight years until retirement.
There did not seem to be not much of step down in activity for Chris. He started and ran his own business, Thornham Marquees, and thoroughly enjoyed running his own show. Chris also quietly worked for several charities. He was Chairman of the Regiment’s Benevolent Committee for ten years. He was the County Secretary for SSAFA, and a fundraiser for SSAFA, running great fundraising events, for which he received the Prince Michael of Kent Award. He was an honest, straightforward and modest gentleman, who valued the service he gave to others.
He leaves his widow Simone, his two children Dominique and Nicholas and his five grandchildren.
RCJG