Colonel Thomas David Lloyd-Jones OBE, a former commander of the Lancashire Fusiliers and Glamis Castle administrator, has died at his Angus home, aged 90.
The colonel, as he was affectionately known, passed away at Reswallie, near Forfar, after a brave fight against cancer, just a few months after being predeceased by Helen, his beloved wife of more than 60 years.
Born in Lincolnshire in 1924, where his father was the vicar at Gate Burton, he was schooled at Greycoats and the Dragon School in Oxford before going on to Wellington College.
When the school was bombed at the start of the Second World War, killing the headmaster, he left school and joined up as a private soldier in the Royal Marines and was posted to command a flotilla of landing craft off the coast of Italy.
He was badly wounded in a raid on Naples harbour, but once recovered found himself as part of a small company of men despatched to the historic Villa Emma to guard King George VI on a visit there.
Following demobilisation he worked briefly on a farm in Fife before finding work with the Anglo Iranian Oil Company laying pipelines in scorching desert heat.
Nationalisation of the company saw its British workers imprisoned, but he managed to escape and returned to England to rejoin the army, gaining a commission into the Lancashire Fusiliers, the regiment he loved and would go on to command.
In 1952 he married Helen Florence Maitland, the daughter of Colonel Sir Ramsay and Lady Maitland of Burnside.
The couple had three children, Jock, Peter and Caroline and seven grandchildren.
Colonel Lloyd-Jones’s professional military career took the family all over the world and he saw service in Trieste, Cyprus, where he earned a mention in dispatches, Germany, British Guyana, Jamaica and Hong Kong, as well as numerous UK postings.
His final appointment was as Commandant of the Cadet Training Centre at Frimley Park, where the colonel’s work earned him an OBE.
Colonel Lloyd-Jones retired from the army in 1978 and took up the post of administrator at Glamis Castle, helping steer the Strathmore family’s Angus seat from private country estate to a flourishing commercial enterprise.
Aside from his Glamis Castle role, he took an active role in many aspects of local life and was honorary colonel of the Angus and Dundee Cadets, chairman of Save the Children, a fundraiser for the Diocese of St Andrews and Dunkeld, chairman of Rescobie Loch Riparian Owners Committee, a member of RM Condorand a staunch supporter of St John’s Episcopal Church in Forfar.
At home the Lloyd-Joneses had a busy life and the Reswallie Motor Museum flourished with his personal collection of vintage and classic cars, stationary engines and motorcycles.