Have You a Tiger In Your Family?

Rank : Major

Army Number : 457111

Unit : Royal 1st Bn, 4th R Anglian

Biography :

Educated at Oakham School, Eastbourne College and RMA Sandhurst, 'Berty' Bowes was commissioned into The Royal Leicestershire Regiment on 2.8.1958. Member of the 1st Bn shooting team in 1959. Service included Germany, Aden and Zambia. Champion Shot in the Zambian Army in 1966. Retired on 6.11.1966 in Zambia and became manager on a tobacco and maize farm. In 1969 he leased and later purchased his own farm subsequently purchasing two adjacent farms thus totalling 4,800 acres. In 1975 he started a small beef herd which by 1981 had grown to over 600 head. Berty applied the meticulous precision he learned in the Army, in his approach to farming, and over a period of 15 years in the Mkushi farming district of Zambia, developed many of the skills required of a farmer, from crop rotation, land management, engineering, equipment husbandry and fixing farm machinery (all with the added challenge of shortages of spare parts), and of course man-management and the welfare of his labour force. He continually developed the farm in many ways whilst ensuring the welfare of his African workers. Five acres of eucalyptus trees were planted per annum, a crop that was purchased by the Chinese investors in Zambia for bridge-building purposes. Latterly, Berty was elected the chairman of the Virginia Tobacco Growers Association of Zambia (VTAZ). In 1981 the farms were sold and he returned to live in the UK, finally settling back here in 1985. Returning home after a short consultancy in Saudi Arabia he then from1986/89 became Deputy County Secretary of the NFU in Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire. Following a period spent with a company building canal narrow boats, his career with the CLA started in 1991, where he was the Regional Secretary for Leicestershire, Warwickshire and Northamptonshire, until retiring in 2001 at the age of 65. He then divided his time as a toastmaster, duly becoming a fully qualified member of the National Association of Toastmasters, and working as Regional Manager (Midlands) for the Country Trust, a charity having a close association with the CLA and many of its members. Due to ill health he resigned from this latter post in 2005.

Son of Major K R Bowes MBE TD DL, nephew of 2Lt E A Bowes (Killed in Action 1918), both of the Regiment, and father of Richard Bowes who held a commission in 2nd R Anglian. The photo is of Berty when serving in the Sultan of Oman's Armed Forces in the early 1960s.

Date of Birth : 1938

Date of Death : 2.7.2013

Place of Death : Wistow, Leics

Civil Occupation : Toastmaster

Period of Service : 1958-66

Conflicts : Aden

Places Served : Germany, Aden, Zambia