Lieutenant-Colonel J. K. Stanford, OBE, MC, died on September 24, in his eightieth year. He was born at Aldringham, Suffolk, on April 29, 1892. He was educated at Rugby and St John’s College, Oxford, and served throughout the First World War, first in the Suffolk Regiment and then in the Tank Corps.
Immediately after that war he joined the ICS Burma, from which he retired in 1938. The following year he rejoined the Army for ” the duration.” It was in 1944 that his book, ” The Twelfth ” was first published.
If Stanford had never written anything else, in this brilliantly witty, satirical novel he would have left us with one of the finest sporting classics published in his lifetime. Fortunately he produced a whole succession of books including ” Guns Wanted ” (1949), ” Bledgrave Hall ” (1949), ” No Sportsman at all” (1952), ” A Bewilderment of Birds ” (1954) ; ” Grouse Shooting ” (1963) ; ” Partridge Shooting ” (1963) and ” Tail of an Army ” (1966). He also wrote many articles for Blackwood’s Magazine, several of which were subsequently incorporated in one or other of his books. From 1952 until 1961 he contributed ” The Changing Year” feature in our contemporary, The Field, after which he began the long series of weekly articles which he wrote for this magazine and which he maintained almost without a break right up to the time of his death.
” J.K.,” as he was affectionately known by all those who were fortunate enough to be able to count themselves among his closer friends, was an individualist by nature and, like all such people, was a bit of a ” loner ” at times. He was a man of immense courage, never fearful of speaking his mind whatever the consequences might be. Never by word or deed, to my knowledge, did he ever try to court popularity and he always had a healthy contempt for that peculiar brand of fulsome flattery which, nowadays, is so often a brassy substitute for honest praise. He could spot insincerity as quickly as he could spot some rare bird through a pair of binoculars.
J. K. Stanford was a sportsman in the best sense of that word. He loved shooting and he enjoyed hunting. He was never a disciple of old Izaak Walton and when I took up fishing, even if only in a very amateur way, as an occasional summer recreation I got the impression, when I told him, that he thought I had gone soft in the head. He almost boasted the fact that the only fish he had ever killed was with a charge of shot from a 12-bore.
If “J K.” will long be remembered as a good sportsman he was also a good naturalist and an outstanding ornithologist. As a young man his enthusiasm for birds took fresh fire when he got to know that fine Suffolk ornithologist, Dr Claud Ticehurst. He learnt much from Ticehurst and never ceased to acknowledge the debt.
During his many years in Burma, apart from enjoying a huge variety of shooting, he made some outstanding contributions to our knowledge of the birds of that region. Some time after the Second World War, in 1952, he was commissioned by the British Museum (Natural History) to explore the bird-life of Syrenaica and to procure certain skins for the national collection and he was one-time Vice-President of the British Ornithologist’s Union.
Although he was a near neighbour of mine and we had met before, it was not until 1947 that the problems connected with the practical conservation of rare birds first really brought us together. At that time four or five pairs of avocets were trying to establish themselves on Havergate Island, in Suffolk. At one period I found myself with J. K. Stanford on a day and night watch of these precious charges, plagued as they were by crows and gulls and rats. We had no better shelter than a small tent insecurely pitched on hard shingle, a tea-box in which to keep our meagre provisions (food-rationing was still in full force) and a highly temperamental primus stove. Under such conditions tempers can sometimes get somewhat frayed and one day we had the father-and-mother of a row. I don’t recall what sparked off the incident but for ten minutes we went at each other hammer-and-tongs. We spent the rest of that day as far away from one another as a small island permitted. Apart from the fact that I have always hated rows, I was miserably unhappy because I had at least been brought up to respect my elders and ” J.K.” was 20 years my senior. But I was too young and too stupidly obstinate to do anything about it.
I remember watching ” J.K.” return to the tent soon after sundown. Not wishing to freeze to death I had no option but to follow. Arriving at the tent when it was nearly dark I found “J.K.” rummaging about in his case, from which he then produced an unopened bottle of whisky (a precious commodity in those days). ” Get the mugs,” he said, ” and we’ll have two big drams to drink to a long friendship.” It was a magnificent gesture, the recollection of which still makes me wince a bit when I remember my own feeling of humiliation at that moment. It was the start of a friendship which endured, without another rough word, to the very end.
Each year, in October or November, J.K.” would come and stay for a day or two. After dinner we would sit on far into the night, sipping a dram and discussing this or arguing about that. It will not be thus this autumn, for the silent reaper has come with his scythe and taken from us John Keith Stanford, sportsman and ornithologist, author and raconteur—a fine countryman and a great English gentleman.
Philip Brown
For BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON JK STANFORD, PLEASE CLICK HERE
Shooting Times Obituary Article
Click on the image to view the full article