Sir James Stuart-Menteth - double amputee

Antipodean Andy · Jan 8, 2009

Double amputee and a truly inspirational man - RIP.

Sir James Stuart-Menteth: soldier, businessman and Blesma activist | Times Online Obituary

Commissioned into the Scots Guards in the war, Jamie Stuart-Menteth lost both legs above the knee while with the 24th Guards Brigade at Anzio. He later made a successful career with ICI, becoming managing director of the alkali and paints division, and devoted much of his considerable energies to the cause of servicemen who had lost their limbs through the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen’s Association (Blesma).

Blesma was tenacious in arguing for increased allowances and facilities for amputees, and Stuart-Menteth’s forceful personality frequently enlivened as well as accelerated its proceedings. Intolerant of bureaucratic delay or excuse, he was outspoken and assiduous in proposing practical steps to advance the cause of the disabled. Returning once to his car which he had parked in Whitehall, he found it had been towed away. Sitting on the pavement to demonstrate his own disability, he refused to move until the police capitulated and his car was returned.

Although elected to Blesma’s executive council he resigned after just over a year, asserting that councils stultified initiative. Yet he was a compassionate man always ready to go to the assistance of others. Hearing of a young infantryman — who had lost both legs in an IRA rocket attack in Northern Ireland — whose progress to recovery in hospital was causing some concern to the nursing staff, he drove at once to the man’s bedside to offer advice and assistance. His understanding but blunt approach had the desired effect, and the soldier survived.

Stuart-Menteth played a significant role in the establishment of the Blesma Venturers. This hardy group of individuals undertook aquatic activities such as sailing and long-distance canoeing as well as a dramatic parachute jump into the Solent, becoming an inspiration for many young postSecond World War amputees.

He was also responsible for persuading, one might say directing, other local landowners in his home area to open forest trails to provide wheelchair access. He consistently urged Blesma to pursue a policy of creating more outdoor pursuits for limbless servicemen, something that is becoming very much to the fore in the work to rehabilitate those injured in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

James Wallace Stuart-Menteth was elder son of the 5th baronet and his wife Winifred. He was educated at Fettes, the University of St Andrews, and Trinity College, Oxford, and served in the Second World War with the Scots Guards in North Africa before embarking on the amphibious landings at Anzio in January 1944.

He succeeded to the baronetcy of Closeburn, Dumfrieshire, and Mansfield, Ayrshire, on the death of his father in 1952. He married Dorothy Patricia Warburton in 1949. She survives him with two sons; the elder, Charles Greaves Stuart-Menteth succeeds to the baronetcy.

Sir James Stuart-Menteth, Bt, soldier, businessman and activist, was born on November 13, 1922. He died on October 9, 2008, aged 85
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