GORDON-LENNOX Major Bernard Charles, CB, MBE

(19 September 1932 – 27 December 2017)

Bernard Gordon-Lennox was the great-great-great-great grandson of Charles Lennox, who played against the Old Etonians in their first two first class matches in 1791. He was in the 1950 Eleven, being undefeated against Walter Robins and Vic Ransom against the XL Club, and making 46 and 34 at Lord’s.

He was captain of WRC’s House, and went for Eton to Sandhurst where he won the sword of honour; in 1953 he was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards. He as a formidable, decisive and highly principled man, who inspired respect and devotion due to his care and concern for all.

His overses appointments commenced with the quelling of the riots in Hong Kong in 1966/67 and ended as General Officer Commanding the British Sector in Berlin, where he was responsible for Rudolph Hess in Spandau prison. The entertainment provided by him and his wife at his home Villa Lemm, particularly for members of the Royal family and Government Ministers, was legendary.

He was subsequently Chairman of the Guards Polo Club, having once pursued an alleged murderer from the polo field in Cyprus, wearing his blue UN cravat and wielding a polo mallet. He played squash well after his retirement, and managed the River Spey fishings on his Gordon Castle Estate, where he was an accomplished fisherman himself.