Commanding vintages

As the bottles flowed, the talk ranged, to a serious vineyard, an awesome Field Marshal and a delightful restauranteur. For years, the late Tom Benham ran Monkeys as a club. He cooked game especially well and his game pudding, made of course with suet, was one of the best dishes that I have eaten. As Tom charged a fixed mark-up for wine, the better the bottle, the better the value. He always found space for his friends, although his way of doing so was often ruthless. One would telephone: ‘Completely full — but wait: there’s a name here I don’t recognise. You can have that table.’ I never actually saw him bar the door to the dispossessed, but I suppose I should have felt guilty. It was unfair. So is life.

Nigel Bagnall was as formidable as any British commander since Alanbrooke. He could overawe the likes of Peter Inge and Charles Guthrie. Sir Nigel appointed the now Field Marshal Lord Inge, KG, etc, to be his chief of staff and greeted him by saying: ‘If you don’t have the moral courage to stand up to me, you’ll be no use to me.’ Peter did, and was. Younger officers found him endlessly demanding and sometimes frightening. But he never added to the unfairness of life. If his standards were met, all would be well. But those standards: Baggie, as he was nicknamed when well out of earshot, was a perfectionist pro tem, until they invented something better.

He would have been Chief of the Defence Staff if he had been prepared to stoop to politics. But he was opposed to the nuclear deterrent, and let Margaret Thatcher know. She did not agree. Nor did he think much of John Fieldhouse, the CDS he should have replaced.