Leaving the field
Roy Hattersley
When the Cheering Stopped Tommy Lawton (Golden Eagle E1.90) Fighting General Tom Pocock (Collins 0.00) I saw neither Tommy Lawton nor Walter Walker until each was past his best. By 1952 Lawton was so thick around the middle and so thin on top that it was hard to visualise him in his days of glory at Everton and Chelsea. In the Notts County forward line, he and Jackie Sewell (the bandiest legs and the sharpest shot in 'fifties football) had formed a formidable Second Division partnership. But watching the two men working together made it painfully obvious that the style of football changes as footballers grow older. Tommy Lawton — the greatest centre-forward who ever played for England — was living out of his time.
Twenty years later, General Sir Walter Walker (relegated from Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces Northern Europe to after-dinner speaker for the British Atlantic Cornmittee) demonstrated the same point. According to Dennis Healey, Walker was arguablY the " best fighting general in the British Army." For thirty years he had fought with distinction all the way across Asia. But the world changed. The brilliant innovation of the Confrontation Campaign in Borneo could not accept or accommodate the new discipline of defence during a period of detente. When he crossed the dividing line between soldiering and politics, Walker was no more successful than the retired Tommy Lawton trying to run a public house, sell insurance or manage a sports shop. Both were destined for glory at the sharp end. When time and circumstance required them to face the blunter parts of life, they both fought losing cam-. paigns. Those campaigns — and the many more which both men won — have now been chronicled. Lawton's story is told in a genuine autobiography, simply written and filled with apologies for himself and gratitude to others. Walker's is written compellingly by Tom Pocock who (as befits a defence correspondent) believes in heroes — and excuses them much that would be regarded as intolerable in less martial men.
Walter Walker was born in 1913 into a family whose traditions of service to the EMpire stretched back into the early nineteenth century. As head day-boy at Blundells School, he was accused by the Headmaster of " antagonising both boys and parents " and urged, to "try to lead instead of drive." He accepteo half of the headmaster's advice. He became ,a brilliant leader of soldiers, but his last days Ill the Army will be remembered not for those whom he led, but for those. whom he antagonised.
Loyalty and discipline are a soldier's cardinal virtues. But there has always been a sort of senior officer who thought it was more blessed to receive than to give — a sort of officer who knows too much to abide by the established rules and supports causes too important to be fitted into the usual patterns of military behaviour. In 1962, when Walker discovered that the Government had decided to reduce the strength of the Gurkhas from ten to four thousand men, he had no doubt where his duty lay. He had a strong personal attachment to the Gurkhas. More important "he saw the Brigade as the heir to the Indian Army's role in the precarious balance of Power east of Suez." So he revealed the Government's intention to the King of Nepal, asked the American Ambassador in Datmandu to persuade the State Department to put pro-Gurkha pressure on the British Government and began to campaign in Whitehall against the policy confided in him by the Chief of the General Staff. Somehow news of the proposed cuts appeared in the Daily Telegraph. Not surprisingly Field Marshals whom he hoped would help in sabotaging the decisions of their successors turned out to be" sticklers for military discipline and correct procedure." Some people actually thought that Walker did not necessarily know best. A reprimand was administered and a Court Martial considered but "in Walker's view it was the British Government and the Army Council that was guilty."
No wonder, when top jobs became scarce, General Walker was on most people's list for early retirement. He escaped the axe by blatantly pleading his own cause and because politicians who wanted to use his military talents believed that his gift for causing offence could be bridled. They were wrong. He became Commander-in-Chief Northern Europe and " assumed that he was expected to behave as he always had. Indeed, it never occurred to him that anything else might be expected."
General Walker has at least got (and for the middle thirty years of his life he probably deserves) a hero's biography. Honour is neglected by others, but never by him. Old enemies turn friends with closer acquaintance. The orders, disobeyed are forgiven. The confidences broken (how else could all those accounts of private conversation have appeared?) are overlooked. His class and his calling protect him from petty accusation.
Professional footballers can expect no such immunity. Tommy Lawton was photographed in the dole queue and his prosecution for (mistakenly) passing a worthless cheque Was reported in every popular newspaper. He Was reluctant to ail( old friends for help and remained resolutely optimistic that football would eventually repay some of the debt it owed to him. As he agreed to help or manage one struggling football club after another he always forgot that the last one had sacked him without reason or compensation.
That is because of the footballer's philosophy in which Tommy Lawton believed. "Skill, ,courage and determination are essentials for any top class player. ... but at the final analysis, it's the run of the ball that Often brings the ultimate success." It was possible to be the best centre-forward in the World and still, unaccountably, go for six weeks without scoring. Nothing, moral or Professional, is certain. Absolute conviction is a dangerous mistake. " Pride, for instance, Can put one above other men or well below. Confidence in one's own ability can put one at the top of the tree or, if misplaced, produce a failure." Retired generals, please note.
RoY Hattersley is Labour member for Birmingham (Spar:throat)
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