Practitioner Experience Notes (PENs)

The older brigade among our Alumni community will remember with great affection Major Jamie Campbell. He was a one-off, as the funeral address by his neighbour on Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides, Charles Arbuthnott, makes clear. I was asked to post it by Christine Purdy (Abel), who in turn received it from Minty Pande – many of you again will know Christine as a former Field Director in Nepal and Minty as a long standing member of the Delhi Office and subsequently Head of the Regional Office in S Asia.

Jamie recently sent John Seaman a copy of an article he had written for the Black Watch regimental magazine – ‘The Red Hackle’ – telling in detail the story of the evacuation of Save the Children staff from South Vietnam in 1975. He wanted it to be preserved as part of the organisation’s history, and it is now in the Save the Children archive at the Cadbury Collection in the University of Birmingham. He also wrote a learned but hilarious piece on ‘pig-sticking’ in India, which I have courtesy of John and would be happy to send to anyone who would like a copy. It shows his gift for story-telling, his passion for research, his love of India, his sense of humour, and his humanity. In case you are wondering, by the way, as I was: “Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, gravesites, and many other objects and materials without the use of scientific apparatus.” – Wikipedia.

Here is the funeral address, published with permission:

BEGINS

“Jamie and his brother Colin were Campbells of Kinloch, in Perthshire, a branch of the Breadalbane Campbells and they were very proud of their lineage. Their father, Major Lillingston Campbell is buried in a beautiful and remote spot, the old Shian Kirkyard at the top end of Loch Freuchie in Glen Quaich in Perthshire, near Amulree and Dunkeld. Jamie, or more correctly Charles James Kinloch Campbell, was born at Scoulton, in Norfolk, a small village near Norwich, the third son of Major and Mrs Campbell. He started his schooling at the Town Close House School in Norwich before going on to his Public School at Greshams School, near Holt, also in Norfolk.

Jamie followed his brother Colin into The Black Watch and went to Sandhurst from 1955-1956, before joining the 1st Battalion who were based quite near Spandau Prison in Berlin which held the last remaining German Prisoners of War. Among many early achievements, Jamie and Colin became first-class javelin throwers and, in 1968, Colin broke the Army javelin record with Jamie only one foot behind him! From Germany Jamie then moved with the 1 st Battalion to the beautiful island of Cyprus. Here he first took up playing Polo at Dhekelia. From Cyprus he went on a two-year attachment to The Royal Highlanders of Canada, a regiment with very close ties to The Black Watch , based at Gagetown in New Brunswick. Jamie got on very well with the Canadians, played rugby for them and went on tough winter warfare exercises up in the Hudson Bay area. Then, after a period as Adjutant of a The Black Watch TA battalion in Dundee, he returned to regimental soldiering in Germany and Edinburgh, during which he was appointed Captain of the Royal Guard at Balmoral.

My own personal memory of Jamie from this period was of him teaching me the strathspey travelling step of the Regimental Foursome Reel – he was a wonderful dancer! He also often played on the very out of tune piano in the Officer’s Mess – he had learnt classical music by ear! After this he had an overseas posting when he served for two years with the Abu Dhabi Defence Force before retiring from the army in 1972. While considering his next move Jamie went off to South America and worked on an Estancia in Argentina during which time, in 1974, he bought two horses and exercised one of his life’s ambitions, to ride solo down the High Andes, a distance of over 1000 miles of remote, very rugged and high mountains and passes.

Later in the same year Jamie joined the Save the Children Fund and worked with them for the next sixteen years. He was overheard to say that he thought he was applying for a job in Bali but after the interview and on being offered the job he discovered that he was actually being sent to Hue in Vietnam at the height of the Vietnamese war. So his first appointment was to Vietnam. It was from that country that he had an amazing escape from the Viet Cong terrorists who had invaded Vietnam from the Communist North. Such was the danger of his base being overrun, Jamie was ordered to evacuate all his staff by road to Danang. Loaded onto landrovers, they were surrounded by Nuns and the local Priest who all begged to be rescued as well and so some very over-loaded vehicles proceeded to an airfield where the British Consul had laid on some helicopters to rescue them. Jamie himself, having seen all the others away safely, was rescued just in time (I should add a note here that Jamie had told me that he “hadn’t thought it British to take the easy way out by helicopter” and so had stayed behind!). As the Viet Cong closed in around that airfield, he was taken to the US Naval Base in Danang from where he went aboard an American warship and to safety.

Jamie was next appointed Save the Children Fund Field Director in Colombia in South America and a year later to India. He was awarded an MBE in 1980 for his services to Save the Children. Asha Dutia who had worked with Jamie during this period said that Jamie was a remarkable Field Director. She went on, “I personally learnt a great deal from him, his star-gazing, riding a camel, his love of nature, adventure, horses and respect for people no matter what crackpots came his way, all made him an utterly honest man with character”. She said “His charm lay in this and his evening dram. He was truly loved for his generosity and kindness by one and all”.

In 1982 Jamie became Field Director in Pakistan before once more returning to India until he retired from the Charity in 1990. Now we come to both Colin and Jamie Campbell over here on Benbecula and of course many here will know more about this period than me. Brother Colin had also retired from the Regiment and had bought Island Flodday and Jamie came over to live near him and moved in with his wonderful mother in her house, Labrang, near Balivanich. Jamie, like Colin, was a very independent man, though the two brothers were always very close and both devoted themselves to life in the Western Isles. In retirement here on Benbecula Jamie developed a great range of interests. In particular with Sue Macdonald he helped found the very successful Benbecula Riding School. He taught himself how to paint in water colour. He became a dowser of great note. He took intense interest in researching his family history and found one ancestor, who later was to establish a claim to the Kinloch lands, who had gone out to Portugal as a mercenary and had married a Nun who was apparently the illegitimate daughter of a Portuguese bishop.

A wonderful tribute from a great friend of Jamie’s from India, Bernard Imhasly, says so much about Jamie that I have to read it to you Bernard heads it: A Gentleman, and (perhaps) an Officer “To dyed-in-the-wool civilians like me he was the unlikeliest of Military Officers. No bootcamp shouts from Major C.J.K.Campbell of Black Watch fame, no strident lockstep, no backslapping banter. Instead, a somewhat shy presence, a man of few words, a slightly awkward gait, in short: a wistful presence. “But when among his friends, and with a dram nearby, a sly humour would light up his face, and his love for wordplay and witticisms erupted. There was a twinkle in his blue eyes, before it broke into the most affecting smile, and laughter would soon ring out. In a flash, his phenomenal memory served up limericks, poetry and naughty two-liners. Though schooled in British irony, his wit was never cutting or mean.

Bernard continues – “it was all part of the Jamie magic, envied by his male friends, irresistible to his – many – female ones. His charm worked on kids too, be it my daughter Anisha when she was small, or her kids later on – suckers all for ‘Jamie stories’. What a father, uncle, grandfather he would have been! Alas, that was not to be. And so, in the end it was us, his friends, who got the full Jamie treatment. “Like-wise with animals. During a visit to Ladakh, where I accompanied him for a Pashmina project of SCF, we walked into the wild, searching for a herd of sheep. I had never seen him happier as he strode through the windy arid plain, shepherd’s staff in his hand, the Aqubra hat shading his weatherbeaten face; or later, as he helped the Ladakhi herdsman hold down the animal for shearing, speaking to it soothingly. “He did that with horses too. Jamie loved horses, and when he played polo with his spats on he reminded me of a Gaucho.

And Bernard went on to say – “a Jamie Story I will not forget was about his being kidnapped by Pashtun tribals during a military stint for the Scouts on the North-West Frontier. They had commandeered his jeep, tied his hands and brought him to a hideout. After being held there for a while he spoke up: “I have now been in your company for over an hour. And you still haven’t offered me Tea! Doesn’t Pasthunwali (their tribal Code of Honour) stipulate that strangers be treated as guests?“. Great commotion followed. The ropes came off, food was served, and he was free to leave – minus the Jeep. Bernard goes on – “and now you have left for good. It will take a while before we can play again a twosome at Bridge. Goodbye, Campobello! And he signs it with his nickname: Balu

Jamie had so many friends, around the world and here on his beloved island home – far too numerous to mention. But I must pay particular tribute to the care, kindness and love bestowed upon him in his last months by Sue Robertson, Maraid, Ester, by the doctors and nurses at the hospital, by you, Drew, who has arranged this service and by many, many others. So here we gather to say farewell to Jamie, a great friend to us all and a remarkable man of so many parts. He fought his illness very gallantly and lived far longer than his doctors predicted, for he always had a fighting spirit and he was wonderfully looked after by all the staff in the Hospital and by all the kind social workers and friends who came to his house so regularly. Farewell dear old friend.

ENDS

Originally discussed on the private Save the Children Alumni forum. This draft requires the author’s review and permission before publication.