George Llewellyn
Guards officer wounded during fierce fighting in Belgium who later devoted himself to farming
GEORGE LLEWELLYN, who has died aged 97, was awarded the Military Cross for his part in the battle for Hechtel in Belgium in September 1944; he went on to be a clotted-cream maker, pig farmer, stockbroker, cabinet maker, gardener and photographer.
Llewellyn was serving with X Company Scots Guards, attached to 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, part of the Guards Armoured Division, and was commanding a platoon in a fierce fiveday battle. He was wounded in the face early on when they knocked out an enemy-towed anti-aircraft gun.
They then dug in among the gardens of a row of police houses. A battalion of the Hermann Goering SS Parachute Division attacked the village but were beaten back. The platoon was isolated, under relentless fire and taking casualties when a troop of Welsh Guards tanks arrived. They brought food and ammunition, but were forced to withdraw.
Llewellyn was wounded for a second time. Too weak to walk and with the platoon in a hopeless position, he ordered his sergeant to try to get the men back to company HQ. He insisted on remaining behind so as not to encumber their withdrawal.
They got back unscathed across open ground in full view of enemy armour and infantry. Shortly afterwards, while Llewellyn was being cared for in a cellar by civilians, his position was overrun and he was taken prisoner with three other wounded guardsmen. The rest of his war was spent as a POW at Oflag 79.
After the war, he served with 1st Battalion Scots Guards and the Guards Training Battalion as adjutant until becoming, in 1948, ADC to Field Marshal Sir William Slim, chief of the Imperial General Staff. Slim treated the 26-year old major like a son.
Once, on a visit to India, Slim was asked by Rajendra Prasad, the president, if he would like to ride the following morning. He replied: “No, thank you, but George would.” Jodhpurs for Llewellyn had to be made overnight.
Two years later, he joined 2nd Battalion Scots Guards in Malaya as a company commander. The subalterns in his company expressed concern among themselves about this “old man” who had joined them and wondered how he would manage life in the jungle. But in March 1951, in the Perak area, his company surrounded a camp and eliminated a gang of communist bandits.
Arthur David George Llewellyn was born on May 10 1922, the son of Brigadier-general Evan Henry Llewellyn, DSO, and his wife Clara (née Ross). He was brought up near Dartmouth at Nethway House, which dates from 1696. After Eton and Sandhurst he was commissioned into the Scots Guards in 1941.
He continued soldiering until 1954. Casting around for something to do, Llewellyn and his elder brother acquired Upton Farm Dairy in Brixham, where they produced up to a ton of clotted cream a day. He learnt on the job, discovering that a by-product was skimmed milk, which at that time could not be sold for human consumption. As a result Llewellyn started a pig farm with up to 1,000 head drinking two gallons of skimmed milk each a day.
They sold the business in 1967, needing to pay school fees, and he became a stockbroker, though he was excused the Stock Exchange exams on account of having passed Staff College. Moving to north Devon he commuted weekly to the City, where he joined Grieveson Grant, and later Hoare Govett.
The family lived at Stuckeridge, a fine house in the Exe Valley, where Llewellyn farmed, managed the woodland and created an exceptional garden with his wife, Loveday. He also took up furniture making. He was chairman of the River Exe Association, fished with great expertise and was keen on rough shooting. In 1982-83 he was high sheriff of Devon.
While in London he had liked to cycle, and in retirement he became a director of Moulton Bicycles, whose Loveday handlebars are named after his wife. Twice he used Moulton’s small-wheeled machines to ride 500 miles across France, raising more than £100,000 for the charity Sightsavers.
In 2009 his exhibition of photographs at the Sloane Club was attended by Princess Alexandra, president of Sightsavers International; her father, the late Duke of Kent, had been his godfather.
Llewellyn married Loveday Bolitho in 1950. She died in 2007 and he is survived by a son and three daughters.