Maj Harold Halcrow died suddenly at his home in Edinburgh on 29 June 2008. Harold was born in 1939 in Kenya, where his father was working in the Colonial Service as an agricultural advisor. After a lengthy stay on the island of St Helena during the war, the family returned to Kenya for a short time before a posting took them to Barbados. This exotic sounding start to his life ended when Harold was sent back to the United Kingdom to attend boarding school, initially at George Heriot’s in Edinburgh and later at Lord Wandsworth College in Long Sutton in Hampshire.

After school, Harold started to train in London to become a dentist. He quickly realised that he wasn’t suited to dentistry and enrolled instead at the Middle Temple to study Law. His short stay at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School did, however, have one wonderful advantage, as he met a young medical student there, Anne, who he was later to marry in 1964.

Having initially deferred his National Service, he decided to enlist in the Army for three years in the middle of his law studies. After training at Mons, he was awarded a Short Service Commission and, in 1960, was commissioned into the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment, just before amalgamation and the formation of the East Anglian Regiment. The Battalion then moved to Osnabruck in Germany, and it wasn’t long before Harold decided to apply for a Regular Commission and make the Army his long term career.

Postings with 2 Royal Anglian included tours in Germany, England, Cyprus and Northern Ireland, and other early postings included jobs at Catterick, Bermuda and Bovington, where he was an instructor at the APC Wing at the RAC Centre. Later tours included Northern Ireland with 10 UDR, Cyprus with the UN Headquarters, Glasgow with the University OTC and Germany again at HQ BAOR and then at AFCENT in Holland. At the end of his stay at BAOR he was awarded the MBE. He retired from the Army in 1993 and moved to HQ Scotland in a Retired Officer post dealing with personnel and discipline matters. He stayed there for several more years until his final retirement.

All of the factual matters concerning Harold’s background should not obscure the two main facets of his life. He was firstly, the most loyal, amusing and generous friend and colleague one could wish to meet. He always went the extra mile to help people and, after his final retirement, took on the role of a SSAFA case worker. Although he often had a rather jaundiced view of the activities of some of his fellow men, this never stopped him from assisting them when help was needed. He was also a most kind and loving husband and father. He took great pride and pleasure in his family, both in Anne, his wife for 43 years, and in his children, Louise and Graham. He has left us all much too soon.

JSH