Mud Sweat & Tears - Bear Grylls [3]
An extract from the Russian Journal in 1917 stated that Walter was ‘an immensely courageous officer and a splendid fellow’. And the Russian Army commander wrote to Walter’s commanding officer, saying: ‘The outstanding bravery and unqualified gallantry of Lieutenant Commander Smiles have written a fine page in British military annals, and give me the opportunity of requesting for him the decoration of the highest order, namely the St George of the 4th class.’ At the time this was the highest gallantry award given by the Russians to any officer.
To be honest, I grew up imagining that my great-grandfather, with a name like Walter, might have been a bit stuffy or serious. Then I discover, after a bit of digging, that in fact he was wild, charismatic and brave beyond the natural. I also love the fact that in the family portraits I have seen of Walter, he looks exactly like Jesse, my eldest son. That always makes me smile. Walter was a great man to be like. His medals are on our wall at home still today, and I never quite understood how brave a man my great-grandfather had been.
After the war, Walter returned to India, where he had been working previously. He was remembered as an employer who ‘mixed freely with the natives employed on his tea plantations, showing a strong concern with the struggles of the “lower” castes’. In 1930, he was knighted, Sir Walter Smiles.
It was on a ship sailing from India back to England that Walter met his wife-to-be, Margaret. Margaret was a very independent, middle-aged woman: heavily into playing bridge and polo, beautiful, feisty and intolerant of fools. The last thing she expected as she settled into her gin and tonic and a game of cards on the deck of the transport ship was to fall in love. But that was how she met Walter, and that’s how love often is. It comes unexpectedly and it can change your life.
Walter married Margaret soon after returning, and despite her ‘advancing’ years, she soon fell pregnant – to her absolute horror. It just wasn’t ‘right’ for a lady in her forties to give birth, or so she thought, and she went about doing everything she possibly could to make the pregnancy fail.
My grandmother, Patsie (who at this stage was the unborn child Margaret was carrying), recounts how her mother had: ‘promptly gone out and done the three worst things if you were pregnant. She went for a very aggressive ride on her horse, drank half a bottle of gin and then soaked for hours in a very hot bath.’
The plan failed (thank God), and in April 1921, Walter and Margaret’s only child, Patricia (or Patsie), my grandmother, was born.
On returning to Northern Ireland from India, Walter finally fulfilled his dream. He built Margaret a house on that very same point in County Down that he had stood so many years earlier.
With a diplomat’s mind and a sharp intellect, he then entered the world of politics, finally winning the Northern Irish seat of North Down in Ulster, where he served loyally.
But on Saturday, 30 January 1953, all that was about to change. Walter was hoping to fly back home from Parliament in London, to Ulster. But that night a storm was brewing, bringing with it some of the worst weather the UK had experienced for over a decade. His flight was duly cancelled, and instead he booked a seat on the night train to Stranraer.
The next day, the storm building menacingly, Walter boarded the car ferry, the Princess Victoria, for Larne, in Northern Ireland. The passengers were reassured that the vessel was fit to sail. Time was money, and the ferry duly left port.
What happened that night has affected the towns of Larne and Stranraer to this very day. Preventable accidents – where man has foolishly challenged nature and lost – do that to people.
Note to self: take heed.
CHAPTER 3
Walter and Margaret’s house, on the shores of Donaghadee, was known simply as ‘Portavo Point’.
The lovingly built house commanded sweeping views over the coastline,