CAPTAIN FREDERICK WILLIAM PAGE-ROBERTS

In remembering people of interest that I have met during my life, first comes my father, Captain F.W. Page-Roberts.

He was the son of the Reverend F. Page-Roberts, vicar to the Duke of Wellington and President of the National Rose Society (he budded some two thousand roses a year and had one of the most famous roses of its day (1920s) named after him).

He went to Marlborough College, then to Wye Agricultural College and then to Egypt (then our Protectorate) to, I believe, show the Egyptions how to irrigate the desert with Nile water.

He was an athlete, scratch golfer, played cricket for his county (Berkshire) and  excelled at tennis.

He played the saxophone and drums in the local jazz band.

When in Egypt, the First World War was imminent, and with his ability to read and speak Arabic, he returned to England to join his regiment (1st/4th Hampshires). As a Territorial, he trained on Salisbury Plain (his uncle was the Dean of Salisbury), and was shipped to India as a Captain and put  in charge of Indian soldiers.

Temporarily debilitated through sunstroke, he missed a major skirmish where his friend (the Colonel of his regiment) and many of his comrades were killed by the Turks (fighting on Germany’s side for the Ottoman Empire). 

Conditions were horrific, being desert in extreme heat and nights of freezing cold, and often, in his case, in the mosquito-infested shallow marshlands that was home to those thought more dangerous than the Turks, the Marsh Arabs.

Our relief Army had advanced to relieve our forward troops who,  in advancing towards Baghdad, had been beseiged in a bend of the river Tigris at Kut. To prevent the force from reaching Kut, the Turks had dug excellent defensive positions at Hanna.

The British General aimed to charge the Turkish lines through early morning mist, but it rose unexpectedly and he did not change his mind. His troops now had no cover.

Exposed to withering Turkish gunfire, Freddy Page-Roberts charged with his men, revolver in one hand and, sword in the other, and was shot in the thigh.

Building a “coffin” of mud as protection from Turkish bullets, he lay in a pool of water and blood for, I believe, two days in daytime desert heat and sub-zero temperature at night.

When bodies were being collected for burial, he was found to be alive. He was then taken from the battlefield to a Tigris hospital boat in an unsprung cart from which he fell several times and was then transported back down the Tigris and on to England.

On crutches, still in wartime, he married Evelyn Hewitt (daughter of Sir Frederick and Lady Hewitt) at St George’s, Hanover Square, London. Outside the church, sheets of thin tissue paper were handed out to the onlookers with the names of the newly-married couple printed on them, surrounded by the flags of Britain’s allies.  

With a foot held up with a spring attached to a colar around his leg, his athletic days were over.

Madame Curie had just invented radium, then thought of as a cure-all. He took it in his quest to regain fitness and died from its radiation.