Bruce Shand

He was the only son of Philip Morton Shand (1888–1960), an architectural writer and critic (from his first marriage).

His father was a close friend of Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier and whose company, Finmar, imported furniture by Alvar Aalto to the United Kingdom.

His mother was Edith Marguerite Harrington (1893–1981), later Mrs. Herbert Charles Tippet.

His parents divorced when he was three years old.

His father went on to remarry three times.

Shand did not see his father again until he was 18.

One of his two half-sisters was Baroness Howe of Idlicote, wife of former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Deputy Prime Minister Lord Howe.

Shand's mother remarried Herbert Charles Tippet, a golf course designer.

Bruce Middleton Hope Shand, (22 January 1917 – 11 June 2006), was an officer in the British Army who served in France as part of the British Expeditionary Force during the Second World War.

He was the father of Queen Camilla.

After the war he became a wine merchant.

Contrary to some newspaper reports, young Shand was not abandoned by his mother and stepfather but was taken to live with them in Westbury, Long Island, New York, in 1921.

He left out this fact from his autobiography, giving the erroneous impression of having been abandoned.

After visiting England in June 1923, Bruce and his mother returned to the US in September 1923 with the stated intent (according to US immigration records) of residing permanently in the United States and taking US citizenship.

When he next returned to Britain it was to begin his education, organised and paid for by his grandparents.

His mother and stepfather returned to Britain in 1927, then moved to Ireland in the 1930s.

He was educated at Rugby and Sandhurst and was commissioned into the 12th Lancers as a second lieutenant on 28 January 1937.

He became a troop leader in "A" Squadron.

His interests included fox hunting, polo and reading.

Shand was promoted to lieutenant on 28 January 1940.

He served in France as part of the British Expeditionary Force.

He aided in covering the withdrawal to Dunkirk, from where he was evacuated back to England, arriving back in Margate on 31 May 1940.

For his actions, he was awarded an MC on 5 July 1940.

After a period with the regiment in Poole and in Reigate, and an interlude training the North Irish Horse in Northern Ireland, Shand was sent with the regiment to North Africa in September 1941 as part of the 7th Armoured Division, where he was promoted to the temporary rank of captain.

He earned his second MC in January 1942, covering the withdrawal of armoured cars of the 6th Rajputana Rifles in the face of a strong counterattack by the Afrika Corps.

The award was gazetted on 9 July of that year.

He met Winston Churchill shortly before the Second Battle of El Alamein.

On 6 November 1942, on a probe towards Marsa Matruh, his vehicle was surrounded and destroyed.

Shand's two crewmen were killed, and he was wounded.

He was captured and taken to Germany as a prisoner of war.

After treatment in Athens, he was held at Oflag IX A in Spangenberg Castle, near Spangenberg, for the duration of the war.

While a prisoner of war, he was promoted to the rank of war-substantive captain and to the substantive rank of captain on 28 January 1945.

After his liberation in 1945, Shand returned to England.

On 2 January 1946, he married the Hon. Rosalind Maud Cubitt, daughter of Roland Cubitt, 3rd Baron Ashcombe, and Sonia Rosemary Keppel, at St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge.

His stepfather died at Rye in 1947 and his mother died in Cooden Beach, Sussex, in 1981.

Shand was sent to France to learn French.

He was Vice-Lord-Lieutenant of East Sussex from 1974 until 1992 and was a Master of Foxhounds.

Shand was born in London into an upper-class family whose ancestors had moved to England from Scotland.

The 12th Lancers were equipped with lightly armed Morris armoured cars in a reconnaissance role.

The regiment spent six months at Foncquevillers during the Phoney War, then advanced to the River Dyle and retreated in the face of the German blitzkrieg.