Obituaries

Lt Col (Ret’d) Nicholas Leadbetter MBE

It is with deep sadness that I report the passing of Lt Col (Ret’d) Nicholas (Nick) Leadbetter MBE on 19 February 2021, from a heart attack, at 67 years of age.

Nick left Welbeck College in 1972, where he was head boy in his final term, and joined the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS). He was commissioned into REME in 1973. He undertook the Regular Young Officer training that was provided at that time, which included unit attachments leading to his first tour in Northern Ireland in his first year of commissioned service and finally graduating with an In-Service Engineering Degree from the Royal Military College of Science (RMCS) Shrivenham.

His first command, in 1979, was that of the Light Aid Detachment of RHG/D, the Blues & Royals, a Chieftain-equipped Armoured Regiment stationed in Detmold in what was formerly West Germany. He was kept very busy with Battle Group training on Soltau Training Area and live firing on Hohne Ranges, prior to “Medicine Man” Exercises in Suffield Canada. His posting was also punctuated with a regimental operational tour in Northern Ireland. When back in the unit, he still found the time to attend and pass the “B3 Mounted Duties” course. Being Household Cavalry, the regiment ran these riding courses using the twenty or so black ceremonial horses stabled in the barracks, to keep their public duties skills current. Although a competent horseman already, this took his equestrian skills to another level.

During his posting to HQ 3rd Armoured Division as SO3 G3 (Operations & Development) he was tasked in 1985 by the then Maj Gen, now Lord, David Ramsbotham to head a trial of digitising a British Army Headquarters for the first time. The trial was the use of GRID hardened/toughened laptops from ICL, distributed around the HQ for daily peacetime use (to generate familiarity) but more importantly in the field, which was taken at every opportunity and regularly. Nick was passionate and made it all happen. His constant liaison with the ICL team was as vital as his persuading the staff officers to make it work (as they were now expected to type); this made the trial a great success. He was awarded an MBE in the 1986 Queen’s Birthday Honours List and the award was conferred in the November of that year.

When he was promoted to the rank of Major, his next command was OC Workshop UNFICYP Support Regiment in Nicosia, Cyprus which was followed by his first staff appointment in 1987, within the Headquarters of RMAS as SO2 G3 (O&D), a role he particularly enjoyed, being back in England. The experience was excellent preparation for his selection to attend The United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, which he began in May 1989. He was reported as being an exceptional student of historical and contemporary tactical and strategic military operations. He was highly respected as a friend and mentor by all of his seminar teammates. This was despite him correcting American spelling constantly and he had a long standing joke with them all, including the lecturers, that Americans just can’t spell. At the end of course leavers’ ceremony he was presented with a jar of alphabet letter sweets/candy “so he would have enough letters to correct American spelling”

Promotion to Lt Col took him to the newly raised Headquarters of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, in Bielefeld in 1991, where he drove the development of the Maintenance Planning and Coordination procedures for this newly formed force. His experience in managing change was now well known and he was next given the task in 1993 of transforming 4 Armoured Workshop into 3 Battalion REME, as their Commanding Officer. He set the foundation stones of 3 Battalion, where his legacy lives on through them today.

The tragedy of losing his beloved wife Sarah in a road traffic accident in Detmold prompted his decision to retire from the Army in 1995 after 23 years in REME. However, service, particularly service to the community, remained a theme throughout the rest of his life.

He became a Non-Executive Director of the Oxfordshire NHS Primary Care Trust in 1996 and the same year he joined the Board of Visitors of HM Prison Grendon, which he continued for the next fifteen years. He left the NHS Trust to work for the Foreign Office as a liaison officer, looking at war crimes on a 6 month tour in Bosnia in 1999. He undertook consultancy work for RMCS Shrivenham and the Army Benevolent Fund (ABF). Later he became the ABF Oxford County Chairman for the nine years between 2006 and 2015, raising £240,000 for the charity during his tenure. He was a Parish Councillor for two terms in Ascott-Under-Wychwood and Chairman of its Village Shop Committee; he also worked as a volunteer in the shop right up until the first lockdown in March.

During this time Nick also took the opportunity to do what he loved best and spend more time in the saddle. In 2004 he embarked on a two-week horseback safari in Malawi. In 2008 he repeated the experience, this time riding the elephant trail. The culmination was in 2014 when he rode 1,500 miles across the Namibian Desert, which he described as one of the most unforgettable, incredible experiences in his life.

He was cremated at Oxford Crematorium during a small family service on 26th February 2021. When Covid restrictions allow, his ashes will be placed with Sarah’s at St Mary’s Church, Swinbrook, where they were married. He leaves behind his two daughters, Hannah and Emma, and his much adored grandchildren Holly, Zach, Summer and Halle. He will be missed by all whose lives he touched.

Former SSgt Bryan Eades

By Donna Eades

It is with sadness that I inform the Corps of the passing of former SSgt Bryan Eades, aged 75 on 28 April 2021. He is survived by his wife/widow, who had also served within the Army, his two children (myself included) and grandchildren, amongst other family.

Bryan joined the Army at the age of 15, becoming a Shipwright by trade in REME. Over the course of 25 years, his career would see him posted to many corners of the globe. As a family we followed, becoming a Forces Family in every sense of the word - my own birthplace is testimony to that.

Bryan was based in Hong Kong in the 70s at the time of Typhoon Hope (which had hit the New Territories hard) and returned again to Hampshire in the 1980s. As a family, we went with him; my fondest memories are of those years.

In 1982, he did two tours of duty of the Falkland Islands. This was a defining point in both his life and career.

In the late 1980’s, the return to ‘Civvy Street’ was complex but he met the challenge with a squaddie’s grace and a soldier’s mentality –that of someone who had seen so much.

He was a REME Veteran and a Falklands Veteran who gave his all. He remained both a Solider and a family man united. Once REME always REME rang very true for him.

As a Veteran, he went on to lead many an Armistice parade within his home town, putting him once again at the heart of the community.

Those who came to know of him knew him as an old school, strict man with the loveliest of chatter. To me he will be remembered as a man loved greatly and highly thought of.

He will be remembered fondly by all, missed more so. A loss felt intensely yet the legacy of the years he served and beyond will remain. Those years are the very foundation on which my own personality had been built; who I am today.

Dad, you served your country in both peace time and at a time of conflict. I hope now that peace resides and rests with you. SSgt Brian Hobbs passed on 13 October 2020. His sons have asked that the below photographs, showing him while serving as a REME Soldier and in later life with his wife, Anne, be shared with the REME Family. His obituary was published in the May edition.