MAJOR FRANK COURTNEY

Daily Telegraph
22/02/2008

Major Frank Courtney, who has died aged 91, won an MC and Bar during
the Second World War, then stayed on in India after independence to
become a symbol of the Raj at the Royal Bombay Yacht Club.

Courtney: sailed into his 80s

Courtney refused to learn Hindi, continued to correct Parsees’
English and never said Mumbai for Bombay. But he joined the club only
in 1953, when it became the last in the country to admit Indians,
and he expected no deference – though he once struck a fellow member
who had insulted his wife.

Over more than 50 years he won most of the club’s races in his Seabird
and Eider, which he sailed into his eighties. He served twice as
commodore and was the last Englishman to be elected president, as
Indian members started to outnumber the British. When it was suggested
that the club should drop the "Royal" from its title and change its
name to "Mumbai", he was heartened by the members’ resounding vote
for retention after the Queen confirmed that she was happy for the
title to continue.

Courtney declined the suggestion that he become commodore for a third
time at the club’s 150th anniversary celebrations in 1996. Nevertheless
his tall, elegant figure in white mess kit epitomised Bombay’s idea
of an English gentleman until his death on January 28.

Francis William Courtney was born at Dulwich on August 15 1916 and
joined the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) at 15. He spent
the late 1930s in India, and was commissioned to serve with 4th Indian
Division in the Middle East and North Africa during the war.

He earned his first MC as a forward transport officer in an attack
on the Vichy French at Mouaddmiye, Syria, on June 18 1941. As the
Fusiliers came under heavy fire, Courtney gathered the vehicles
together, appointed relief drivers and by personal example inspired
the continuation of the advance.

When the remains of the column were subjected to further small arms
and tank fire later that morning, he aided its temporary commander
in restoring a confused and difficult situation.

A year later, Courtney was navigating officer of a brigade headquarters
column which broke through the enemy line south of Matruh, Egypt. His
coolness and tactical skill under heavy fire together with total
disregard for his own safety earned him a Bar to his MC, which went
with two mentions in dispatches.

In early 1943, Courtney joined the staff of Lord Louis Mounbatten,
Supreme Allied Commander South-East Asia. It was while waiting for
a boat back to Egypt at Bombay that he met the beautiful Armenian
Catherine Ripsyma, who ran a boutique at the Taj Mahal Hotel. Although
he suspected that his regiment would not accept her in peacetime –
and that she, in turn, would have no love for the regiment – they
married, later adopting a daughter.

The end of the war found Courtney a staff officer in Delhi, where
he once fell 30ft off the walls of the Red Fort into the dry moat,
which was full of snakes. On coming out of the Army he decided not to
return home to the austerities of Clement Attlee’s Britain. Instead he
found a job in Bombay producing radio commercials for Ceylon Radio,
which used a powerful transmitter left behind by Mountbatten; later,
he expanded into television and established another transmitter in Goa.

He did much to restore the self-esteem of the expatriate community
by rescuing the UK Citizens’ Association from decline, setting the
Bombay Ex-Servicemen’s League on a sound footing and serving as a
trustee of the Breach Candy hospital. He was appointed OBE in 1980.

Frank Courtney’s wife predeceased him. He kept a home in Britain, but
Bombay remained his chief residence. He rented a flat for 27 rupees
(£3.20) a month, and retained a cook-bearer to minister to his needs.

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