Colonel Timothy Lionel Trotman

Timothy Lionel Trotman (Apsley, 1950-1954)

Died 8th April 2023. 

The following was written by a colleague of Timothy’s, and was sent to us by Timothy’s wife. 

Tim was not only one of the most talented people I met during my short time in the Army: he was also one of the most modest and self-effacing, who never bragged – or indeed even spoke – about his many achievements.

 

Despite working for him for 2 years, I had no idea at all that he:

 

• Was a prize-winning Class 1 Russian interpreter, taught by the widow of the Speaker of Kerensky Government (I imagine there must have been a number of such widows !)
• Also spoke fluent German
• Took part in the Cyprus Emergency (was one of the characters in The High Bright Sun based on him?)
• Was in the USSR when the Berlin Wall went up – but got safely back I
• Examined Prince Michael of Kent in the Russian interpreter exam
• Played a leading role in the Greville Wynne/Gordon Lonsdale exchange which was later immortalised in the film The Courier!

 

So to say that Tim’s career was varied and unusual, not to mention successful, would be a gross understatement.

 

Where did it all start? Bury St Edmunds! Tim began his Army career with the Suffolk Regiment at Blenheim Camp, Bury St Edmunds. In the next bed to him was Ned from Nacton who could neither read nor write. He was however brilliant in shining up boots, so he did Tim’s in exchange for writing out love letters to his girlfriend!

 

National Service seemed to qualify Tim for the Suffolk Regiment tie, of which he was rightly proud. Should you ever see Martin Bell on TV in his hallmark white suit, he invariably wears a Suffolk tie too!

 

Sandhurst followed, and Tim was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Queen’s Royal Regiment (West Surrey). Some of you may be unaware that the cap badge of the West Surreys is the Paschal Lamb. I have a book of cartoons published in the 1930s, which depicts soldiers from the Civil War, the Peninsular War and the First World War all charging with bayonets fixed and bloodthirsty expressions on their faces. The caption: “Since Charles’s {that’s Charles I, by the way) time full many gory scenes have been engentled by the lamb-like Queen’s”.

 

An operational tour during the Cyprus Emergency followed, and then a Russian course at the Army College of Education at Wilton Park, near Beaconsfield. This led to an exciting career in the intelligence field, starting in Paris and leading to Berlin where Tim was the only Class 1 Russian interpreter. This may seem surprising, in view of the importance of the USSR in our strategic plans at that time. But the British have never been great at languages: when I left the Army just after Tim, there were as I recall around 200,000 British troops in Germany – and just 11 German interpreters Army-wide (not all in Germany, of course), only one of whom was Class 1!

 

One important and enduring feature in Tim’s life was the Aldeburgh Golf Club – and I am not just talking about post-retirement. Sir Dick Franks, who organised the Wynne/Lonsdale exchange from Bonn, was a member; and on one of his many tours in Germany, Tim enjoyed playing at the RAF Bruggen golf course. There he met Wing Commander Christopher Wood and his wife June, and discovered that their respective parents were next-door neighbours at Aldeburgh. It is a small (golfing) world!

 

Unlike that of many unconventional army officers in the post war era, Tim’s career was also fast­ moving, culminating as the Head of Military Intelligence and Counter Intelligence in Northern Ireland. In this role, he was enormously successful and masterminded the operation at Loughgall Police Station which eliminated a number of key terrorists.

 

It undoubtedly helped that Tim had previously commanded a battalion of the part-time Ulster Defence Regiment; and also that he had established an excellent working relationship in 1969 with Michael McAtamney, a Police Superintendent in Londonderry. By the time Tim returned as Intelligence chief in 1985, Michael had become Deputy Chief Constable.

 

Tim would undoubtedly have been promoted further had not ill-health intervened. A life-long smoker, he succumbed to angina and serious heart problems in 1979 and had to be airlifted to Woolwich Military Hospital.

 

Tim was not only a highly competent and visionary Army officer, he was great fun as well with a wicked sense of humour. Like so many people from across the Services, I found him a rewarding and appreciative leader who cared about his soldiers, both male and female, at a rank where many officers lose interest in those at the bottom of the establishment. Like many too I have happy memories of his final dining-out at Lisburn and the specially-composed fanfare “Farewell to Colonel and Mrs Trotman”. It was an appropriate note on which to bring an outstanding and unusual career to a close.

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