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A review from Robson Lowe's The Philatelist, Volume 37, No, 9, June 1971:
There are few philatelists about whom a full biography has been written, but this posthumous honour has been paid to RICHARD MEINERTZHAGEN by John Lord in "Duty, Honour, Empire" (Hutchinson £3). As we have not read the volume, we cannot say whether his unusual career as a stamp collector is described, but the review has aroused many memories. It was early in 1940 when we first met and the little we knew of him then was confined to what we had read of his benevolent violence in Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" and his battles of words as a member of the R.Z.S. Later we learned the curious story of his telegraphic address "Montezuma", a name that had been given him during the Somaliland Campaign of 1903-04. He had rescued (or bought) a young European girl from Arab slavers who had brought her up from babyhood; the Colonel protested that it was asking for trouble for the girl to travel to India on a troopship with hundreds of the soldiery. Richard thought otherwise and she travelled safely with them as a type of regimental pet known to all as "Montezuma's Daughter".
Israel owed a great debt to Meinertzhagen, who was Chief Political Officer in Palestine and Syria in 1919, and he occupied the same position with the Zionists as Lawrence did with the Arabs. Meinertzhagen had an enormous zest for life, his love of wild life (his volume "Birds of Arabia" is a classic), of sport (his pig-sticking resulted in his name being given to an enormous breed of black porkers), his career as a soldier in East Africa, Flanders and the Near East, his collections which included glass spheres (the authorities must have wondered why Belisha Beacon tops were short in Paddington), policemens' hats and helmets (we dare not disclose how he acquired one in St. James's Square), and stamps (sold for the Rebuilding Fund after the bombing of the Guards Chapel).
Most stamp auctioneers hated him for he selected what he wanted before the sale, put the lots in his pocket and left instruc¬tions for the auctioneers to buy them for him. An expensive way of buying but Dick got what he wanted. Our personal ex¬perience of this man in some ways belied his reputation. His gentleness, his ability to cook superb dishes that were really popular, with his men friends (his steak pudding was unforgettable), his courage in keeping a luncheon appointment with us on the day after his only son had been killed on the beaches of Normandy—"Of course it is regrettable but it is an occupational hazard of our profession".
Perhaps the story of his adventures which is best known and completely typical, is of his meeting with Hitler. "Heil Hitler" said the Fuehrer. Dick thought it was curious for a man to heil himself but entering into the spirit of the party, he raised his hand and cried "Heil Meinertzhagen".
Footnote. Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen died on the 17th June 1967 and an obituary notice appeared in this journal in July (Vol. XXXII, p. 314).
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Posted 05/07/2011 10:00 pm
