Major Frank Courtney RIP

Kyt · Feb 21, 2008

Major Frank Courtney - Telegraph

Major Frank Courtney, who has died aged 91, won an MC and Bar during the Second World War, then stayed on in India after independence to become a symbol of the Raj at the Royal Bombay Yacht Club.

Courtney refused to learn Hindi, continued to correct Parsees' English and never said Mumbai for Bombay. But he joined the club only in 1953, when it became the last in the country to admit Indians, and he expected no deference - though he once struck a fellow member who had insulted his wife.

Over more than 50 years he won most of the club's races in his Seabird and Eider, which he sailed into his eighties. He served twice as commodore and was the last Englishman to be elected president, as Indian members started to outnumber the British. When it was suggested that the club should drop the "Royal" from its title and change its name to "Mumbai", he was heartened by the members' resounding vote for retention after the Queen confirmed that she was happy for the title to continue.

Courtney declined the suggestion that he become commodore for a third time at the club's 150th anniversary celebrations in 1996. Nevertheless his tall, elegant figure in white mess kit epitomised Bombay's idea of an English gentleman until his death on January 28.

Francis William Courtney was born at Dulwich on August 15 1916 and joined the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) at 15. He spent the late 1930s in India, and was commissioned to serve with 4th Indian Division in the Middle East and North Africa during the war.

He earned his first MC as a forward transport officer in an attack on the Vichy French at Mouaddmiye, Syria, on June 18 1941. As the Fusiliers came under heavy fire, Courtney gathered the vehicles together, appointed relief drivers and by personal example inspired the continuation of the advance. When the remains of the column were subjected to further small arms and tank fire later that morning, he aided its temporary commander in restoring a confused and difficult situation.

A year later, Courtney was navigating officer of a brigade headquarters column which broke through the enemy line south of Matruh, Egypt. His coolness and tactical skill under heavy fire together with total disregard for his own safety earned him a Bar to his MC, which went with two mentions in dispatches.

In early 1943, Courtney joined the staff of Lord Louis Mounbatten, Supreme Allied Commander South-East Asia. It was while waiting for a boat back to Egypt at Bombay that he met the beautiful Armenian Catherine Ripsyma, who ran a boutique at the Taj Mahal Hotel. Although he suspected that his regiment would not accept her in peacetime - and that she, in turn, would have no love for the regiment - they married, later adopting a daughter.

The end of the war found Courtney a staff officer in Delhi, where he once fell 30ft off the walls of the Red Fort into the dry moat, which was full of snakes. On coming out of the Army he decided not to return home to the austerities of Clement Attlee's Britain. Instead he found a job in Bombay producing radio commercials for Ceylon Radio, which used a powerful transmitter left behind by Mountbatten; later, he expanded into television and established another transmitter in Goa.

He did much to restore the self-esteem of the expatriate community by rescuing the UK Citizens' Association from decline, setting the Bombay Ex-Servicemen's League on a sound footing and serving as a trustee of the Breach Candy hospital. He was appointed OBE in 1980.

Frank Courtney's wife predeceased him. He kept a home in Britain, but Bombay remained his chief residence. He rented a flat for 27 rupees (£3.20) a month, and retained a cook-bearer to minister to his needs.
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Adrian Roberts · Feb 22, 2008

Sounds like a great character, and one of the last of a dying breed of Anglo-Indian gentleman.
No doubt some will think of the passing of his kind as no loss in a supposedly enlightened world. But, it seems he had an Indian wife and not to have made many enemies among the Indians, albeit he mainly related to the richer ones. And who can blame him for not wanting to return to the Britain of the late 40's? Anywhere warm would have seemed a better option.

spidge · Feb 23, 2008

You will never get me out of here ....What!

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