Captain FEJ Letheren MVO

14 December 1916 – 7 August 2005

A Brief Biography

(Provided at the funeral 17 August 2005)

Ted was born in Spain, the son of Dorothy (nee Reeves, from Birmingham) and Fred (from Winkleigh in Devon), who was stud groom to the Duke of Alba.  They lived in the grounds of the Palacio de Liria in Madrid.  Ted, “The English Boy”, went to school locally but was sent to Birmingham from 1929 to 1931 for some English education, where he was known as “The Spanish Boy”!  He captained his highly successful school football team (Golden Hillock F.C., South Birmingham League Champions, Victoria Shield and Aston Villa Cup Winners 1931) and developed a life-long devotion to Aston Villa.

He completed his education in Spain and started work at Crossley’s (import/export) in 1934.  About this time, he fell in love with Marie Carmen Paris, the daughter of a Madrid Council official.  Ted had to leave her behind when the family had to leave Spain at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936, moving to Barnes.  His attempts to marry Carmen by proxy were thwarted by her death from meningitis in 1938, a sad blow, news of which was delivered two weeks later, on the day he buried his father, who died of cancer, aged 57.  The Paris family, especially Salicita, Carmen’s sister, remain close friends to this day.

Ted worked briefly for J Lyons but soon joined the office of the Duke of Alba in London, as a translator.  The Duke represented the new Spanish Government.  He met Camilla Bowmer, through the friendship of his sister Joan and her sister Ninette.  They got engaged in November 1939, soon after WWII broke out. He was called up in April 1940, having been dissuaded from volunteering earlier by his mother.  He married Camilla in June 1940.  He had to thumb a lift to the church and spent most of his wedding night on guard duty!

He was commissioned in April 1941.  There followed endless training all over the country for D-Day. He went into France on D+20, before the fall of Caen.  He saw service in France, Germany and Italy, commanding a mortar platoon.  He was mentioned in despatches, wounded a couple of times, not by the enemy on one occasion and was demobbed with the honorary rank of Captain in 1946.

He returned to work for the Spanish Embassy, gaining his professional qualifications through night school study: ACIS, 1948 and AAIA, 1949.

He was awarded Spanish Civil Service decorations of Chevalier of both the Order of Civil Merit (1956) and of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (1960).  The latter was upgraded to “Comendador” in 1975.

When Tony Bueno (who was his Best Man at the wedding) retired, Ted became Chancellor, possibly an unique position as this post is normally only held by a Spanish national.

Throughout his time at the embassy, in addition to his responsibilities for the embassy administration and accounts, he served numerous dignitaries visiting the UK from Spain, looking after them from their arrival at the airport through the VIP process, during their time in the UK and seeing them safely back into the hands of Iberia, the Spanish national airline.  These visitors included the King and Queen of Spain on numerous occasions, their children too and Ted developed a deep admiration for the Spanish royal family.  His home is decorated with gifts from them, including several photographs.

He retired in 1986 but not before the State Visit of the King and Queen of Spain, after which he was awarded the MVO by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, for services rendered during the Royal Visit.

He was also awarded the Grand Cross of Civil Merit by the King, in recognition of his fifty years service to the Spanish Government, an honour which caused consternation in the corridors of power in the UK.  The Spanish Government ignored protocol, awarding an honour two grades higher than normally given to “locally employed staff”.  Fortunately, our Queen graciously accepted the situation and granted him permission to accept the honour.

Ted was married to Camilla for sixty-three years; he was devoted to her throughout his marriage and enjoyed the extra time he could dedicate to her upon his retirement.  He was devastated by her loss on July 30 2002.

The arrival of his Great Granddaughter in December 2004 brought him enormous joy and the whole family rejoiced when he was able to meet her on May 11 this year, a truly “golden day”.  What a blessing it was that we had the opportunity to bring the four generations together before we lost him.

A Tribute to My Father, Ted Letheren 14 December 1916 – 7 August 2005

Spoken at the funeral 17 August 2005

Good Afternoon, everyone.  Thank you all very much for coming today to bid farewell to my father, Ted Letheren and to celebrate his remarkable life with us.  Our special thanks go to the current Chancellor at the Spanish Embassy in London, Señor José Luis Asensio, who is with us today, also to Their Majesties King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia for their condolences and support conveyed by telegram last week.

You were given a brief biography with your Order of Service to allow me to concentrate on the man, knowing that you have access to some of the key facts of his life.

I did not sleep on the night of 7 August but it was not because I was miserable.  Of course, I was very sad but I found myself reliving moments that I had shared with him throughout the last 60 years, some long forgotten, every one of them remembered with a strangely uplifting sense of joy.

Our holidays were special.  In the early days, we went by steam train.  After he had loaded the luggage and my mother and Ginny in the carriage, he would take me down to see the locomotive, shiny and hot, hissing steam and smoke, dripping water and oil.  It was so thrilling but he would wait until the last minute before re-joining my mother; while I was terrified that the train would leave without us.  He taught me to surf in Cornwall.  Although he became very frail in later life, he was stocky, a well-built, athletic-looking man, muscles bulging, never running to fat.  I remember us changing into swimming trunks in the pouring rain (no wetsuits then), to go surfing; Mummy and Ginny huddled in the hired car on the grass above Porthmeor Beach.  What fantastic fun for father and son to share.  He enjoyed the express train thrill of a good wave, me too: “come on, one more big wave before we go back!”

I remember frequent visits to the Embassy, usually on a Saturday morning; he always worked a five and a half-day week.  What a fuss was made of us by the embassy staff, all talking Spanish or heavily accented English.   Now here is a strange thing.  My father was a very quiet man, self-effacing, modest, and not at all outgoing.  In fact he was rather stern, a forbidding character really, who seemed to command respect without trying.  However, as soon as he switched to Spanish, he became a completely different person.  He was animated, excited, and used his hands to convey passion in a way he never did in English.  It was magical to watch the transformation.

Let me share with you a bit more of the kind of man I perceived him to be.  As I said just now, he was rather stern.  As a youngster, I suppose I was even a little scared of him.  He was horrified at that thought when I shared it with him recently.  However, he never raised his voice and although he believed in the value of corporal punishment, I cannot remember him ever raising a hand to either of us, but he did not need to.  A look of disapproval from him was more than enough punishment.  Yet he was a very kind and generous man.  When I stumbled and fell from grace, I expected and deserved censure but what I was given was support and worldly understanding.

He had a very clear sense of right and wrong and lived his life bound by his own rules and yet he understood the frailty of the human spirit and forgave others.  He hardly ever swore, except about other drivers, diplomats and left wing politicians.  He was never profane or coarse.  He did not laugh a lot but when he smiled, his face lit up.  He had a wicked twinkle in his eye, which was much more than just the glint from the new lenses fitted in his eyes after his cataract operations!

Despite his training and a life spent in accountancy, he was strangely naïve in business matters.  He always paid his bills in full, before the due date.  He would not haggle and it would have been anathema to him to ask for a discount.  While he was in hospital I found some money he had put aside on the kitchen windowsill to pay the milkman.  When I caught up with the milkman, he told me to forget it, because my father had overpaid him.

He was always both discrete and generous when giving gratuities, not in the hope of better service in the future but because he valued “service” and was pleased to reward those who provided it.

He loved his family above all things.  He took enormous pride in the achievements of his son and daughter and especially so in the achievements of his five grandsons.  He was not always very good at telling them how proud he was.  If you offered him a B grade he wanted to know why it was not an A, if you achieved an A, he wanted to know why it was not an A+.  He never tired of telling other members of the family how well this or that particular grandchild was doing.

During his working life, he worked very hard, doing long hours but he felt it was what was necessary to provide for his family.  Much of that working life was devoted to serving others.  When he retired, he devoted his whole life to looking after my mother.  All he wanted was for her to be happy.  There were times when we thought perhaps he did more than was good for her but it was his way of showing how much he cared for her.  In their marriage, he wore the trousers where all the major decisions were concerned but he always deferred to her for the every day things and she was the primary interface, particularly on the telephone, with the rest of the family.  We saw and heard much more of his softer, gentler and more caring side, after she had gone.

Although the last three years were very difficult for him, we were all pleased when he bought leather armchairs and filled his home with photographs by the dozen, mainly of the family, which really pleased him.  My mother did not like leather furniture and was not keen on lots of photographs and at last, he was doing his own thing!

H e was 88 when he died and various parts of his body were reaching their limit, including his knees, lungs, heart, gall bladder and kidneys.  He did not understand it, believing he had been healthy all his life and felt very let down by his body.  We are very sad that we were not privileged to keep him a bit longer but grateful for his sake that his departure was swift.

I was taken on one side by Ernie, one of his fellow patients a couple of days after he was admitted to hospital.  “Your father is a real gentleman”, I was told.  How did he know?  He had only seen my rather confused father across the ward for a couple of days.  Somehow, Ernie knew.

My father was and is my hero.  His standards were very high but he was a superb role model, a real gentleman and a very gentle man.

A Letter written by Giles, Ted's eldest Grandson, on behalf of Giles' daughter, Ellie, aged 9 months

It was read at the funeral by Mark, Giles' brother

Dear Great Grandpa

I’m sorry I can’t be with you today to say goodbye but I want you to know that I am thinking about you instead.

Mummy and Daddy are very sad that you have gone.  And even though I am very little and don’t understand very much, I know that I feel sad inside too.  I am not sure why I feel sad, as I know that wherever you have gone you are happy now.  But still, I feel sad.

Mummy and Daddy have done their best to explain things to me:

They have said that I can cry because you are gone but it would be better to smile because you lived.  I like smiling more than I like crying.

They said that I can close my eyes and pray that you will come back but that it is better to open my eyes and look at the picture of you I have by my bed.

They said that I can let my heart be empty because I can’t see you in person again but that instead I can feel full of the love you showed for me.

They said I can turn my back on tomorrow and live yesterday or I can be happy and remember that you made my tomorrow possible.

They said that I can remember you because you have gone or that I can cherish your memory and let it live on through my future.

Mummy and Daddy tell me lots of things.  Most of them don’t make sense.  When I need things explained to me simply I ask the dog. He has a simple way of looking at things.  He thought about this for a while and said that wherever you have gone, he liked it better when you were here.  I think I agree with him.

I love you Great Grandpa.

Ellie