Brigadier Sir Miles Hunt-davis
Private Secretary to the Duke of Edinburgh who gave evidence at Princess Diana’s inquest
BRIGADIER SIR MILES HUNT-DAVIS, who has died aged 79, served as Private Secretary to the Duke of Edinburgh between 1993 and 2010. This was a particularly happy phase in Prince Philip’s office. Unlike some previous private secretaries, Hunt-davis did not come in as a personal friend, though he soon gained the Duke’s trust and respect. He was part of a triumvirate who worked exceptionally well together, despite different styles. Hunt-davis shared his duties with his predecessor, Sir Brian Mcgrath, who retired several times over, but as he put it, “left by the front door and then returned to his desk through the French windows”.
While Hunt-davis was head of the office, undertaking all the major official engagements – arranging the Duke’s programme, overseeing finance, and sitting in on Way Ahead Group meetings with the Royal family – Mcgrath dealt with Prince Philip’s German relations and his carriagedriving weekends. Hunt-davis said that this arrangement might have been difficult, except that he and Mcgrath got on so well together.
The third member of the team was Dame Anne Griffiths, the archivist, who looked after Prince Philip’s private papers and art collection, and served him with total loyalty for 60 years. Mcgrath died in 2016 aged 90, and Dame Anne in 2017 aged 84, both still very much part of the team.
The Brigadier accompanied the Duke on the more important public engagements, travelling to every corner of the globe with him, and was in attendance on the Queen’s state visits such as to France (1992), the United States (1993), Russia (1994), South Africa (1995) and Pakistan and India (1997). In March 1997 he accompanied Prince Philip for three weeks to Hungary, Turkey, Abu Dhabi, Oman, Mongolia, Japan, Russia, Alaska and Canada. A particularly fascinating visit was to northern Siberia, where they stayed in a wooden house, next to a beach.
During much of this time, Prince Philip was international president of the World Wildlife Fund, the cause of much travel. Hunt-davis was impressed by the Duke’s inquisitive nature, and his never being afraid to volunteer an alternative way of doing something. He also watched as Prince Philip found many of the answers proffered unsatisfactory.
He was impressed, moreover, by the Duke’s mastery of his briefs, saying: “I followed him around for 19 years, and I definitely followed him around with my mouth firmly shut, because there were very few things that he had not had practical, personal experience of. If he’d thought about it he probably would have said, ‘Yes, well, I think we’ve been here before’, reel off the last three visits and say he’d seen this or that or this type of flora or fauna …”
In December 2007 Hunt-davis made a foray into the public arena, when he gave evidence at the High Court to the inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. He was subjected to intrusive questioning from Michael Mansfield on behalf of the Fayeds, who had asserted, with no evidence, that Prince Philip had been responsible for plotting Diana’s death.
The Brigadier was prepared to produce extracts from affectionate letters from Prince Philip to the Princess, written in the summer of 1992 at a time when she and the Prince of Wales were on the point of separating.
During cross questioning he answered with quiet dignity, refuting the accusations one by one. When asked if he had ever heard Prince Philip wish Diana dead, he replied that he had not, “and in view of the correspondence we have seen today, I am very surprised that it was even suggested”. He remained calm when Mansfield accused him of living in a “hermetically sealed office”.
Miles Garth Hunt-davis was born in Johannesburg on November 7 1938, the son of Lieutenant-colonel Eric Hunt-davis, who had served at Gallipoli in the Australian army, and his South African wife, Mary Eleanor Turnbull, née Boyce, whose father had come out from London in quest of a “brave new world”. His parents divorced when he was a boy and he and his brother were educated at St Andrew’s College, Grahamstown. He left school without notable academic success.
For five years he worked for a British company in South Africa and then moved to the parent company in London. At first he lived in a bedsit just off Sloane Square, being paid £10 a week, so he joined the Territorial Army to meet people and to make a bit of extra money. He joined the Parachute Regiment as a private soldier and was then commissioned into the Queen’s Royal Regiment.
Aged about 24 he decided to become a regular officer. Being too old to go to Sandhurst, he joined as a three-year officer and passed out as top cadet of his intake (Mons OCS). When he told the training officer that he was going to the Queen’s Royal Regiment, the officer looked him up and down and said: “No you’re not, you’re going to the Gurkhas.”
He was commissioned into 6th QEO Gurkha Rifles in 1962, saw active service in Borneo and Malaya between 1964 and 1966, was a student with Canadian Land Forces Command and Staff College between 1969 and 1970, and rose to become Commander of the British Gurkhas, Nepal, between 1985 and 1987.
He greatly admired the Gurkhas. “They are natural soldiers,” he said. “If you are from a hill farm in Nepal and you survive to adulthood, you are a very, very tough man.”
In 1975, when he was Brigade Major 48 Gurkha Infantry Brigade in Hong Kong, he was telephoned at home one Saturday lunchtime and tasked with receiving some 3,000 Vietnamese refugees by ship the following evening. These were the “boat people”, and by the next day the number had risen to 4,000. He stationed them on a polo ground, and the day afterwards the Gurkhas who had arranged this were duly on parade for the arrival of the Queen and Prince Philip.
From 1976 to 1979 he was Commandant of the 7th Gurkhas in Seria, Brunei, where his calm leadership was greatly appreciated.
While in Nepal he escorted the Queen on a visit to the Gurkhas in February 1986. On that occasion he spent the afternoon with Prince Philip and Brian Mcgrath. On leaving the Army in 1991, the MOD rang him and asked if he would be interested in a job at the Palace. He was appointed Assistant Private Secretary and took over as Private Secretary in 1993, also serving as Treasurer. During these years he lived at Nottingham Cottage, Kensington Palace, now the home of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
A tall man, with a fine head of hair, Hunt-davis was totally straightforward, with none of the guile occasionally associated with courtiers. He was benign and kind, and outsiders greatly enjoyed working with him. He was appointed MBE in 1977, CBE in 1990, CVO in 1998, KCVO in 2003, and GCVO on his retirement in December 2010.
He became President of Alliance of Religions and Conservation in 2011 and spent his last years in retirement in Wiltshire. One of his last public appearances was to attend the funeral of Sir Brian Mcgrath in 2016.
Hunt-davis held the appointments of Colonel, 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles, from 1991 to 1994, chairman of the Gurkha Brigade Association from 1991 to 2003, and Trustee, the Gurkha Welfare Trust (UK), from 1987 to 2002.
He was Governor of Sutton’s Hospital in Charterhouse from 2009, a Freeman of the City of London, a Younger Brother of Trinity House, and held honorary degrees from Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities.
With Colonel ED Powell-jones, he produced the abridged History of the 6th Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha Rifles in 1974 and captained a team at a World Elephant Polo Championship.
In 1965 Mile Hunt-davis married Anita (Gay) Ridsdale, who survives him with their daughter and two sons. One son, Ben, became an Olympic oarsman who won a gold medal at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and was one of those who rowed Gloriana in the Diamond Jubilee Pageant of 2012.
Brigadier Sir Miles Hunt-davis, born November 7 1938, died May 23 2018