Brigadier Frank Coutts RIP

Kyt · Nov 10, 2008

Brigadier Frank Coutts - Telegraph

Brigadier Frank Coutts, who has died aged 90, had a notable career as a policeman, soldier, rugby international and author.

Francis Henderson Coutts, one of six children of a minister of the Church of Scotland, was born at St Luke's Manse, Milngavie, Glasgow, on July 8 1918 and educated at Glasgow Academy, where he played rugby for an undefeated 1st XV from 1934 to 1936.

He joined the Metropolitan Police and was based at Gerald Road, near Victoria Station. In his memoirs he recalled pounding the beat, saluting members of the Cabinet in Belgravia, and the moment when a woman in a top-floor flat emptied the contents of a chamber pot over the head of Sir Oswald Moseley.

Coutts enjoyed playing rugby for the force, but his ambition to make a career with it was frustrated by the closure of the Police College at Hendon, and he joined the Army. He was at first turned down by the King's Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB), who did not have enough rifles to take on more recruits, and he enlisted with The London Scottish at Rugeley, Staffordshire.

He was posted to the Tank Hunting Platoon, which was equipped with bicycles. When they moved to Brighton, he was billeted at the girls' public school Roedean, where a notice in his bedroom invited the occupant to "ring if you require a mistress". Encouraged, he pressed the bell; but sadly, as he wrote later, there was no response.

Coutts was commissioned into the KOSB and posted to the 4th (Border) Battalion at Berwick-upon-Tweed. One of his tasks – which he found disagreeable – was censoring the soldiers' mail. It was a point of honour among brother officers that the contents were never discussed, but there was one letter that, after the passage of many years, he considered could be given wider circulation. Headed "KOSB, Somewhere in Scotland", it ran: "Dear Mother, it's a bugger. I was pissed again last night. Please send £5 and the Christian Herald. Your loving son, Jock."

The CO was a rather eccentric character. Upon being informed that the window in the mess was fixed shut, he announced that he would "unfix" it and, picking up his stick, proceeded to knock out all the panes. On another occasion, at breakfast in the battalion's dining hall, after many of the men had complained about the fatty bacon, the CO climbed on to a table, knelt down, called for silence and in a loud voice delivered a prayer: "O Lord, send us a lean pig."

In October 1944, 4 KOSB embarked for Ostend and took part in the assault and capture of the port of Flushing in the Scheldt estuary. Coutts was involved in fierce fighting on the river Maas and in the battle for the Rhineland before finishing the war at Letzlingen, near the Elbe.

After being granted a regular commission in 1946, Coutts played rugby, as a lock forward, for BAOR and subsequently for Scotland. In two notable victories, the Scots defeated Wales 13-11, and then England 27-0 at Murrayfield. The following year he played at Twickenham when the Scots lost 5-24. Between 1946 and 1948 he was selected eight times for the Barbarians.

Coutts went to Staff College, Camberley, in 1949 and then served on training assignments at Edinburgh Castle, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Dumfries. From 1956 to 1959 he was a company commander with 1 KOSB in Malaya during the Emergency and then in Berlin. He was GSO 1, based in Singapore, from 1962 to 1964 during the "Confrontation" with Indonesia.

He was promoted to brigadier on his appointment as Commander 155 (Lowland) Infantry Brigade (TA) in 1955. His last appointments were Chief of Staff, Scottish Command, followed by Divisional Brigadier The Scottish Division and then Commander Highland Area. He retired from the Army in 1973.

He returned to Edinburgh as general secretary of the Earl Haig Fund and the Royal British Legion Scotland. A tireless campaigner against the merging or disbandment of the Scottish regiments, he was also an enthusiastic fund-raiser for numerous charitable institutions. Coutts was honorary colonel of the KOSB from 1970 to 1980. Appointed MBE in 1951, he was subsequently advanced to OBE and CBE.

In 1984 he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of the City of Edinburgh. In the 1977 to 1978 season he was president of the Scottish Rugby Union.

He published, in 1991, One Blue Bonnet, an account of his military adventures, and, in 2006, a collection of reminiscences called The Golden Thread.

Frank Coutts died on October 20. He married, in 1948, Morag Fullerton. She predeceased him, and he is survived by their two daughters.
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