Clyde Cartwright 1928-2023

In the summer of 1946, a scholarship boy armed with a fine set of Higher School Certificate grades from High Storrs (Boys) Grammar in Sheffield, where he had been Head Boy and Captain of Football, took himself to Cambridge to seek a place by knocking on College doors. At each of his somewhat randomly chosen Colleges, he was told, unsurprisingly, that places had now been allocated, but at one, possibly Jesus, the Admissions Tutor, apparently impressed by both the grades and the young man’s enthusiasm and initiative, wrote a note for a colleague and suggested he visit Fitzwilliam House. He did, and so began an association stretching over eight decades. 

Alwyn, as he was known at the time, came up in the same year, on a State Scholarship to read Modern Languages, switching after Part I to Social Anthropology (which explained the ‘Tribal structure of the Ebo’ which perplexingly adorned our childhood bookcase). These were frugal and austere times, and throughout his three years he shared digs in a modest house off Castle Hill, eating out at the British Restaurant, and, one imagines, on occasion patronising the odd hostelry.  A comparatively uncommon schoolboy among warrior undergraduates, a number of whom were accomplished and distinguished sportsmen, Alwyn’s representative sport was limited to the fringes of the University teams, including as an occasional Falcon, but he was a Cuppers regular in football, tennis and cricket. Similarly, a minority Grammar School product among the predominant former Public Schoolboys, he probably struggled with and prickled at the prevailing sense of privilege and wealth, but nonetheless made some firm and lasting friendships among fellow outliers, enjoying his three years immensely, ever appreciative of the opportunities on offer, and retaining very fond memories. He graduated in 1949, with a very sound 2:1.   

On coming down, he was quickly conscripted, as was then the practice, and elected to be commissioned in the Royal Air Force as an Education Officer. It was during Officer training that he became known as Clyde (a rather obscure extrapolation of ‘Carty’, a school and gamesfield nickname, through Clydesdale, the breed of carthorse), which would remain his monicker thereafter. Shortly after receiving his commission, he married Pauline, a State Registered Nurse and High Storrs (Girls) alumna. Now with a small son, during his first posting at Shawbury, Clyde was approached for Russian Language training, readily accepting to study at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at London University, followed by residential immersion with the White Russian émigré community in Paris. Still holding his commission, he was recruited into the Security Service, serving first in Vienna, until its Four-Power tutelage ended in 1955, and then in Berlin. He was later appalled by the unmasking of George Blake, whose betrayal explained the eradication, but did not erase the memory, of some of Clyde’s contacts. For the vast majority of Clyde’s many friends and acquaintances, this chapter in his life necessarily long remained closed and concealed. 

Events in Berlin caused Clyde to question his public service vocation, and he resigned his commission, returning to his native Sheffield to management in the steel industry. However, after a relatively short period, late 1950s Sheffield proved itself too parochial to contain Clyde’s thirst for wider horizons, and he re-applied for his commission, resuming his interrupted Air Force career, this time in the Secretarial Branch with a posting in 1958 to Scampton, then an operational V-Bomber station. 

His next move was to Cranwell as Accounts Officer, where he taught Russian to the Cadets ‘on the side’ and where began, through playing for ‘Icarus’, what would become a lifelong association with football in the RAF. On graduation from Staff College at Bracknell and now a Squadron Leader, in 1964 he was appointed to the MOD at Adastral House, before shortly being posted, to his immense pleasure and pride, to the Defence Services Secretariat in the Royal Household, serving directly under General Sir Rodney Moore and then Admiral Sir Ian Hogg, with an office in Buckingham Palace.  

Subsequent postings took him to sandy Sharjah, a far cry in 1967 from the glitzy prosperity that the Gulf has now become, where he particularly enjoyed spare-time desert adventures with the Trucial Oman Scouts; a Command Headquarters role at Brampton; and, on promotion to Wing Commander, to RAF Innsworth as OC.  Further moves included the National Defence College, both a student and member of the Directing Staff, before a posting on promotion to Group Captain to HQ Support Command, Andover. After the NATO Defence College in Rome, where Clyde became the first non-native speaker to lead the francophone syndicate, and where he and Pauline struck multiple and lasting friendships across the nations, came a posting as Command Education and Training Officer at Rheindahlen, HQ RAF Germany, and, again to his intense pride, his appointment as ADC to Her Majesty. It was here in Rheindahlen that Clyde’s involvement with RAF football intensified, chairing the RAFG FA, actively supporting teams at local matches and participating on tour, and earning the respect and affection of players and technical staff alike as ‘Boss’.  

Retiring from a second posting to Innsworth in 1981, which he combined with chairing the RAF FA, Clyde followed quite a well-trodden path to a relatively brief appointment as Bursar of Lancing College, before he decided to join the British Services Security Organisation, coming full circle after thirty-odd years back to covert operations in Berlin. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, he was posted in a liaison role with the German authorities (BfV) in Cologne, from which he finally retired in 1993. 

During retirement, variously spent in the Black Forest, Sheffield, West Sussex (twice) and Berlin, Clyde (and Pauline) travelled extensively and maintained contact with their wide circle of friends, including fellow Fitzwilliam alumnus (Harry) Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore. He and Pauline were for many years regular attendees of Fitzwilliam alumni events. They also particularly enjoyed supporting RAF Football, of which Clyde was Life Vice President, and they were, for many years, season ticket holders at Brighton and Hove Albion FC. 

Clyde died peacefully in Hailsham on 4 May, 2023, aged 95. He is survived by Pauline, with whom he had shared a most full life, two sons, four grandsons and five great grandchildren.