Book of Remembrance

William Allan Spowers, soldier, auctioneer and arboretum creator died at his home in Windlesham on 12 June 2009. While he might not be considered to have been a total eccentric. Bill certainly had a outlandish trait to his character which made life fun for those around him but equally sometimes brought him close to conflict with the authorities. He was born on 8th January 1925 in Melbourne, Australia and was educated at Geelong Grammar School. At the age of 17 he ran away from school to rescue his father, Colonel Allan Spowers, DSC, MC, who was captured in North Africa in 1942. He joined the AIF, volunteered for service in the Middle East, attended OCTU in Palestine and was commissioned into the Seaforth Highlanders, later serving with 6th Battalion, Parachute Regiment in Italy. It was then, while on an unauthorised patrol behind enemy lines, that he was badly wounded and invalided back to Australia. After his recovery he went to ADC to his godfather, Richard (later Lord) Casey, the Governor of Bengal and it was he who recommended Bill for a transfer to the Grenadier Guards. After service in Burma, Bill transferred to the Regiment in April 1946. Despite his war experience as a Platoon Commander, Bill was sent to the Guards Depot to join a recruits drill course because, as the Lieutenant Colonel put it “he has no basic training behind him and he must learn the importance of our Grenadier methods..... Saluting and immaculate turn-out”. After an attachment to the Guards Training Battalion he was posted to the 2nd Battalion at Wuppertal, returning to the 1st Battalion in Chelsea Barracks in April 1947. He was to remain with the 1st Battalion for nearly ten years while commanding the Mortar Platoon, a Rifle Company and Headquarter Company. During this time he twice took DOMCOL leave to Australia. While the normal entitlement was 61 days Bill discovered various other leave regulations which, when added together, allowed him to be away from December 1947 to September 1948 when he rejoined the Battalion in Tripoli. On the second DOMCOL in 1951, he drove his Rolls Royce from Tripoli via Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Persia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. In April 1953 he married Antonia (Toni) Aked, but not before Bill had thought it necessary to follow Regimental custom and ask the Lieutenant Colonel’s permission. They will both be remembered for their generous hospitality, particularly in their Hubbelrath married quarter. They had three boys, Hugo, Adam and Rory, but sadly divorced in 1984. Bill married Jane Rees-Davies in 2004. Life was never dull in BAOR when Bill was around. When his company entered the 20-odd mile Nijmegen Marches, Bill would always be seen carrying the Bren Gun as they strode towards the finish. On exercises he dined in his tent with silver or gold candlesticks on the table and then, wrapped in an eiderdown on his camp bed, enjoyed a good night’s sleep. Legend has it that at dawn one morning, Brigade HQ moved forward to a new position in a field previously occupied by his Company, only to find Bill’s solitary tent with him still in residence. The farewell party given by the outgoing Commanding Officers was preceded by a treasure hunt for which there was a prize for the most original object. Bill found a traction engine, an old fashioned puffing Billy, which he “borrowed” and drove along the narrow road to the Commanding Officer’s married quarter. Unfortunately the camber caused the machine to slide sideways with the consequence that a number of hedges, belonging to Germans who were just getting their houses back after the war, were totally destroyed. After Staff College in 1958, he worked in the MOD in MO3 and SD4 and it was then that he heard of the possibility of joining Christies’. He wrote to the Regimental Adjutant “I feel that I might be of infinitely more use to the Regiment employed there than I am of use to them while I am employed here”. He was accepted by Christies’ Chairman, but despite the fact that his relief in SD4 had been posted and was actually taking over, the Retirements Board turned down his application to leave the Army because he had not served long enough after Staff College. True to form, Bill argued his case and together with an appeal from the Major-General to the CIGs, he was ordered to leave. So ended a highly colourful military career to be followed by a highly successful time as Christies’ Director of Books and Manuscripts. In the early 1960s Bill sold to the Regiment, for a nominal sum a very fine collection of prints and water colours of the uniforms of the Regiment. Items from the Spowers Collection have adorned the Regiments’ Mess and Officers ever since. In 1957 Bill and Toni bought a cottage in Windlesham together with 43 acres of swamp. Since, then until his death, he created one of the largest privately, developed arboretums in the country, now consisting of about 25,000 tree and 185 acres. At the memorial event in his life, his work was described as being accomplished “with panache and stubborn determination”. Among the wonderful vistas are lakes and ponds, an amphitheatre, statues, grand columns, ruins dating from the 1980s and 90s, and a chapel for which he had recited council planning permission to build a potting shed. He was buried privately, in his chapel, beneath his Company Colour.