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- Wynn_Normington_Hugh-Jones abstract "Sir Wynn Normington Hugh-Jones LVO, known familiarly as Hugh, has had a life of unusually wide interests and achievements. He has been successively Scientist, wartime RAF Officer, Historian, Diplomat (for 25 years), Civil Servant, Voluntary Organisation manager, Political Party manager (Liberal), Political Party Treasurer, Voluntary Organisation fund-raiser, lecturer in International Affairs, campaigner and conservationist. Now in retirement he remains a keen follower of public affairs, sportsman and family man.YouthBorn in the Vale of Llangollen in 1923, in the aftermath of the First World War, he was the second son of a Welsh County School Headmaster and Yorkshire mother, both of whom were gifted in intellect, looks, and sportsmanship and were devoted to public service and family. He inherited much of both, tempered only by a shyness that led him to prefer the back room to the front in most of the public life he was to follow. But he early showed a love of challenge and has risen to many in his life. The outstanding are mentioned in this note. Many more are to be found in his two volumes of autobiography, “Diplomacy to Politics by way of the Jungle” and “Campaigning Face to Face” published in 2002 and 2007 respectively.UpheavalHis first challenge came in the premature death from cancer of his father in 1937, followed by the move his mother then had to make to Ludlow, back to teaching (mathematics), to support her two boys. Eryl, the elder went at 16 to medical school in Liverpool, and Hugh at 14, to Ludlow Grammar School, a fine old school now a 6th Form college, which he continues to enjoy visiting. At that time it was for boys only, an oddity to him after co-education at Llangollen. Then, in 1939, came the War, to disrupt life even in rural Ludlow. Evacuees poured in, teachers disappeared to War, the school had to accommodate evacuee schools from the South Coast and Birmingham, and life became regulated by rations, black-outs and air raid warnings. Hugh was fortunate to have a wonderfully devoted and able mother but at school he had to learn to study on his own. He also had to do LDV/Home Guard duty. He took to his studies with application and success, but nonetheless found time to captain the school cricket and rugby (and to establish a school batting average record of 92). CambridgeTo many middle class families in that age, the height of ambition was a provincial university and teaching. Hugh’s mother had already applied for a Department of Education grant for him. But before disappearing to War, his Physics Master persuaded him to try Cambridge. He did and gained both entry and an open scholarship to Selwyn College. He still had to take Cambridge’s compulsory Latin exam, with little knowledge of the subject, and be interviewed by a neighbouring Headmaster for Selwyn. Fortunately science and engineering students were let off lightly on the Latin. The Government wanted modern not Roman technicians. As for the interview, it was arranged at Hereford when Hugh was visiting with his Ludlow cricket team to play the Headmaster’s school team. Ludlow happily won that match by 10 wickets and Hugh bowled out six of them for two runs. (A feat he was never able to repeat!) The Headmaster greeted him when they met for interview: “Congratulations, I don’t think we need spend much time on this”. Cambridge still valued all-rounders in those days.Hugh worked hard and achieved the Natural Sciences Tripos in 2 years (normally 3), including Electronics at the behest of the Government, and emerged with a 1st Honours MA and a useful introduction to the then rapidly developing field of radio telecommunications.Before leaving Cambridge he was interviewed by representatives of the War Ministry, led by C.P. Snow, Master of Christ’s College and a well-known author at the time. Hugh immediately volunteered for the RAF, then thought he had better ask the options, only to be told peremptorily: “It’s the RAF for you, young man”. Snow believed in the old Army tradition that volunteering meant “you, you and you!” But Hugh never regretted the decision.RAFHe joined up at 19 in 1943 and, after officer and technical training, found himself with eight other budding Signals Officers at a command headquarters in London, facing a wall map of the world and being asked to volunteer for posting to one of three commands: the UK, North America, or Mediterranean/Middle East. No one wanted the latter except Hugh. He maintained afterwards he had seen a light cross the map to Cairo and back to Italy and France. It was of course where the action was, which was what he wanted.He saw it soon enough, first on the Gothic Line in North-East Italy where he also encountered Churchill and Generals Alan Brooke and Alexander, and then in the Anvil Dragoon invasion of Southern France. He celebrated V-E Day in Algeria, and spent the rest of the War providing, at the Elmas base in Sardinia and then at Transport Command HQ in Cairo, telecommunications needed to air transport troops back and forth to the Far East. He was demobilised in August 1946, still only 21 but confident in survival and much the wiser in the ways of man and the world. But he was now three years behind on career.He was offered a permanent commission in the RAF, in the rank of Squadron Leader, but declined it. For all his admiration of the Service and pride in the uniform, he had developed an interest in international affairs and was determined to return to Cambridge to study History as a start. He had also, by chance, seen an Air Ministry Order inviting applications to join the Foreign Service and Civil Service under new Reconstruction regulations which took into account war-interrupted education and favoured ex-servicemen. He had also met an enthusiastic RAF Education Officer who encouraged him to have a go.Diplomatic ServiceIn the event he took it as it came. His first concern was to take Part II of the Cambridge History Tripos in one year (which he achieved with 2(1) Honours). He took the written Foreign and Civil Service exam in a sandstorm in Cairo, and had to remind the examiner afterwards he was a scientist not an essayist, before they passed him. He took the French (oral) in London and knowing little of the language was fortunate to find the examiner understanding. He claims he took the Country House weekend and final Interview like he played cricket, uncoached but quick on the uptake and respectful of googlies. The competition was intense. There were candidates demobilised from Government, the Armed Services, and the Indian and Sudan Services, as well as fresh from the leading public schools. But the selectors liked him and gave him good marks. He was evidently the type the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, wanted to help broaden the hitherto narrowly recruited Diplomatic Service. He joined in October 1947.He spent 25 years in the Service, enjoying what he described as “a circle of London, Wilderness, Flashpots, three times round.” The Wildernesses were Saudi Arabia, Guinea and the Congo. The Flashpots were Paris, Rome and Ottawa. He found Guinea the most interesting. He had to create an Embassy and pioneer a relationship of trust with the Marxist Guineans through the period they were the near–Cuba of Africa. He was later awarded the LVO partly for his work there.He found Paris the most enjoyable. He loved the city and country and found his feet socially after the fallow years of the War, London and Saudi Arabia. He even played cricket there (and in Brussels, Rotterdam, Geneva and later Rome). It also gave him the opportunity to appreciate the nascent institutions of the European Community and to persuade his Ambassador, the formidable Sir Gladwyn Jebb, that, contrary to London opinion at the time, Britain would find good reason to join. It was the beginning of the conversion of the Foreign Office to this cause (and for Hugh a lifetime friendship with Sir, later Lord, Gladwyn).In contrast, the post he liked least, despite the wonderful high plateau climate and 9 hole golf course he found at Elisabethville, was undoubtedly the Ketanga and Kivu in eastern Congo in the mid – 1960’s. He was sent there to assure supplies to neighbouring Zambia during the Rhodesian rebellion but spent most of his time protecting his British and Commonwealth communities from President Mobutu’s murderous paratroops. He had to risk his life on several occasions. His account of the episode published later, was described by the magazine The Diplomat as “FCO sang-froid at its best”.For Hugh the Congo was the turning-point. He enjoyed being a Foreign Office trouble-shooter. But he now had a wife, Ann (they had married before Guinea) and two small children, Julia and Robert, with a third, Katie, forecast, and he wanted them with him. The Foreign Office was good about that but in a muddle administratively at that time, merging with the Commonwealth Office and Service. They had appointed him High Commissioner to Brunei during the Borneo War but bungled it so badly Hugh felt driven to explore alternative careers. They then wanted him to go to Hanoi, the Viet Cong capital in the Vietnam War, an idea of Prime Minister Harold Wilson to assuage President Lyndon Johnson. Hugh was to be their eyes and ears there. He was told he should be able to house his family in the Saigon American base! He drew the line at that. His Congo posting followed. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office liked initiative but not non-conformity in those days. The pre-war entry was still in charge.The Congo proved hard on the family. Hugh had to evacuate them twice to Zambia, with all the women and children of his Katanga community when local Congolese law and order collapsed. He was offered Ottawa and promotion afterwards and he and his family had two civilised years there. But ill-health befell Ann, and he decided he could no longer drag them around the world. He must find a new career.Career changeThat took him longer than expected - actually two years. He insisted on exploring every possibility and had interviews in business, finance, education, the Civil Service and Voluntary movement that would fill a book. But, still more absorbing, the FCO kept finding him challenging one-off assignments. They wanted him in fact to stay in the career in London, as others did when struck with similar misfortune.He returned home in late 1970 to settle his family in their house in Guildford and attend Business School at Oxford. That not only proved instructive but, to his amusement, entitled him to say he was a member of Oxford University as well as Cambridge. The FCO then invited him to spend three months penetrating the world of BBC and Independent Television management to improve working relations with the FCO. He succeeded beyond expectations and was thanked by both sides.EuropeThen came the special assignment. Prime Minister Edward Heath had at last reached agreement with the French President Pompidou on British entry into the European Communities and wanted national support for the terms negotiated. There was to be a country-wide campaign through every post -box and all the Media, and meetings up and down the country in what came to be known as “The Great Debate”. It ran through the Summer of 1971, and was in fact the largest information campaign ever conducted in the UK in peace-time. There was also of course a large opposition campaign. All Ministers, MPs, political Parties, CBI, TUC, European Movement and countless other bodies and Individuals were involved from early July to October, with just some easing in August, leading up to the great Parliamentary debate and vote in late October.Hugh was asked in May to take on the organisation of the campaign as Official Co-ordinator. He had never done anything like this before but, with his gift for organisation and his contacts in the BBC, ITN and ITV, he entered into it with vigour. The Polls were then consistently showing public support at less than 25% in favour and 60% against. By the end of July, after one month of the campaign, the Poll of Polls showed public opinion had actually been reversed – narrowly but enough to go forward with confidence to the Parliamentary vote in October. On 28th of that month the Commons approved by the decisive majority of 112, “that British entry into the European Communities on the arrangements negotiated by the Government be agreed in principle”. Hugh was never officially thanked for his contribution because it was customary for politicians to take the credit, but he found it fulfilling and enjoyed it greatly. He wrote the official report, and was then appointed to spend an interesting few months with Ministers Geoffrey Rippon and Geoffrey Howe in the Cabinet Office, steering the European Communities legislation through Parliament; and then organising advice to business and industry on the new prospects for them in Europe.Freed then to resume his search for a new career and encouraged by the FCO, Hugh took the obvious course of applying for a senior position in the European Commission in Brussels, but found himself in the extraordinary position of being black-balled by Whitehall, with a few others, for being too pro-Europe! That was a shock, but in truth a god-send. He had had enough bureaucracy and preferred direct responsibility. He applied for the Director-Generalship of the distinguished voluntary organisation the English Speaking Union, devoted to international educational exchanges, and was selected.ESUHe joined the ESU in the Autumn of 1973, maintaining personal links with the Foreign Office, for they had an interest in the work of the ESU, but breaking the umbilical cord of government service after 26 years. He found the change demanding but exciting. It was a new challenge.The ESU had just come through a Membership rebellion and (unbeknown to the Board) was about to hit an even more threatening financial crisis. Hugh spent 3 years restoring the organisation’s finances, membership and purpose and began its expansion beyond the old Commonwealth and America, into Europe. Never shy of hard work, he enjoyed the job - and being in charge - and was warmly thanked when finally leaving. He retains his honorary membership of the ESU to this day.Liberal PartyIn late 1976, looking for another new challenge, Hugh found the Liberal Party was advertising for a Secretary General (Chief Executive), and he promptly applied. He had inherited an interest in politics and the Liberals from his father (and actually visited the House of Commons as his last act before going abroad during the War - coincidentally, by chance, with Churchill’s historic entry to announce the 2nd Front). He had not been able to do much for the Liberals while with the Foreign Office and ESU but had expressed interest to some leading Liberals in one day possibly filling the very post they were now advertising. Also he had quite recently lectured an eminent group of them, including the chairman of the Welsh Liberals, Lord Hooson, and Lord Gladwyn, on the nascent world oil crisis. His application was welcomed by them and, crucially, by the Treasurer and the President of the Party. But it was opposed by the Leader and Parliamentary Party, the Agent’s Association, and the powerful Devon and Cornwall regional association, among others. Their objection to him was that he was an ‘outsider’ and they wanted the Party’s star agent appointed to the job. The dispute soon got into the press, embarrassing those candidates who like Hugh had not yet informed their existing employers. One or two dropped out as a result. Hugh decided to fight on, and apologised to the ESU. It was a gamble but he won through. The appointments board chose him by vote.While working out his notice to the ESU, he devoted every spare moment mending Liberal fences by meeting with every leading Liberal and unit of the Party he could reach in the time, starting with the Parliamentary Party. He found the Party lacking management, and determined that would be his main task. There was a General Election to prepare for and, as it emerged, a Lib-Lab Pact with Callaghan’s Labour government on the stocks, to complicate matters. He arranged to live during the week in the National Liberal Club and to be on the job when week-ending at Guildford, too. It was to be full-time for seven years.It took him six months to establish his position. He then decided to tour the Party from one end to the other. It had not been done by a chief executive in living memory and took him every week-end for months. But it proved popular and successful and, in one form or another, he repeated it annually whenever he could thereafter. In particular it was credited with substantially increasing the Party’s vote in the 1979 Election. The Seats result in that Election was disappointing but the Party organisation was absolved of responsibility for that and generally judged to have been the best for years.After the Election he agreed to continue as Secretary General for a further four years. He steered the Party, under the leadership of David Steel, through the formation of the Alliance with the new Social Democratic Party, playing a key role in the difficult seats negotiations. Without that division of seats the two Parties could not have fought the 1983 Election together, still less created the merged Liberal Democratic Party we have today.ResignationHe did resign once, in the run-up to the 1983 Election. That was in despair of internal machinations in the Party that threatened the preparations for that Election. He was begged to carry on until the Election, which he did, and then retired. He then learned from a leading historian of the Party that he was “the only head of the Party organisation in very many years to have left in his own time!” He was thanked warmly by the leadership, Assembly and regions of the Party and many individuals, including the late David Penhaligon MP, who reminded the Parliamentary Party that “but for Hugh’s prodigious efforts on the Seats Negotiations with the SDP, some of us would not be here now”. He was knighted for political and public services in the New Year Honours 1984.TreasurerBy this time Hugh had decided he still had something more to give to the Party if they wished, and stood, with his friend the late Anthony Jacobs, for election as joint Treasurers. They were duly elected by the Party Assembly and carried that burden together for four years, Hugh as fund-raiser and Anthony as accountant. Hugh recruited a team of voluntary fund-raising experts and, together with his co-Treasurer, finance staff and constituency treasurers, they kept the ever penurious Liberal Party afloat until within sight of merger with the better funded SDP. Given the Party’s disposition to “go for broke” at every election it was no mean feat, as the Leader acknowledged when they retired.Other Public ServicesHugh found time during this period, and later, to help a number of other causes, notably the distinguished Queen Elizabeth Foundation for the Disabled (of which he became a Governor), the European Atlantic Group (a Vice-Chairman), Liberal International British Group (Vice-President), Wiltshire Community Foundation (a Governor), North Wilts. Golf Club (he wrote their Constitution for them) and a conservation group Avebury in Danger.International lecturesThrough all these years he retained his interest also in international affairs, and in 1984, accepted a challenge to undertake two ESU lecture tours of the South-West and Mid-West of USA on the Cold War and World Economic problems. He was ahead of his time in forecasting both major changes in the Soviet Union and warning of economic crisis ahead. He was listened to with all American courtesy, but doubted he made any converts. It was the early Reagan/Thatcher era. But he greatly enjoyed the challenge - and subsequently revisited America many more times, including 35 States. It was with sadness that on medical advice he eventually had to give up annual exchange visits with his American friends.RetirementIn 1987 he retired, with his second wife, Oswynne, to the World Heritage village of Avebury, expecting visitors from all over the World but otherwise rural bliss. Instead they found the village threatened by a succession of property developers seeking to cash in on Avebury tourism and the Thatcherite “Enterprise Culture”. The threatening developments were: a period conference centre, a theme park, an hotel and a bus park, all on sensitive conservation sites.Hugh was immediately recruited by local campaigners to mount an umbrella campaign against the threats, under the title “Avebury in Danger”, and in particular to organise against the proposed conversion of the centrally located Avebury Manor into a sham Elizabethan Theme Park. He and his new colleagues had this under way in quick time, and won the full cooperation of the local planning Council. They became an effective conservation force with national and international support from the press, interested organisations and people. It took six months hard campaigning under Hugh’s leadership and then two years of Inquiries and follow-up to be rid of all four threats. Avebury World Heritage Site and village have not been seriously threatened since.Hugh then retired with his wife to golf, garden, visits to their beloved Algarve and writing his two-volume memoirs. In 2012 they downsized from their period house in Avebury to a modest bungalow in the charming old market town of Devizes. He reckoned it was the 49th time he had moved dwelling place in his life. The 50th will be the last, he forecast. ==References==Diplomacy to Politics: By Way of the Jungle, The Memoir Club, Spennymoor, 2002.http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/BDOHP/Hugh-Jones.pdf Interview with Malcolm McBain, 2005Campaigning Face to Face, Book Guild Publishing, Brighton, 2007".
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