Myles Carson Walker was a few days short of his 80th birthday when he died on 10th October 1993.
After being educated at Sherborne School and The Slade, he joined the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and was in the Gulf at the outbreak of War. He could have stayed there but he came home and signed up as a Trooper in the Royal Horse Guards with whom he had a unique initiation into warfare.
On patrol with his mounted troop in Windsor Great Park, they were surprised by a damaged Messerschmidt making a forced landing: the troop wheeled into position and charged with sabres drawn to capture the amazed pilot hiding beneath his aircraft: “the last cavalry charge”, as Myles said, “on British soil”.
Commissioned into the 8th Hussars in 1942, he joined them at their lowest ebb after the disastrous actions around Sidi Rezegh and served with them through to the successful end of the desert campaign.
Back in England preparing for D-Day, he was a senior subaltern and his quiet, mature competence was a strong influence in helping to guide the many newcomers in the steps of their battle-hardened companions. The Regiment landed in Normandy on D+3 and Myles served with them until shortly before VE Day when his ‘B’ Release was requested by the AIOC, and he reluctantly left the Regiment and returned to Persia.
When President Mossadegh nationalised his oil industry in 1951 Myles retired, moved to Nigeria and joined Unilever in Lagos. He became the first Chairman of the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association and also, returning to his accomplished sport polo, was elected President of the Lagos Polo Club.
It was in Lagos that in 1957 he married Cecilia, and they continued to live there until 1963, when they returned to England, living first in Wiltshire before he started a Management Consultancy firm in London.
This kept him busy until he finally retired in 1982 and they moved to Dorset where he housed his by-then considerable collection of beautiful objects d’art.
Myles’s calm, modest nature covered a strong character and he is remembered with great affection by his family and many friends who universally respected and admired him.
