In Honour of Fred Bailey

A letter to the Telegraph alerted me to the existence of Fred Bailey. To quote:

“He was an astonishing chap. He was recruited at the end of World War I to go to Turkestan to find out what were the Bolsheviks up to and to keep a keen eye on Indian nationalists. Tashkent was in the hands of the Bolsheviks who then decided to capture Samarkand. Bailey advised the Emir to cut the Bolshevik lines of communication by sabotaging the railway. Accordingly, the Bolsheviks withdrew and put out a contract on Bailey. 15 assassins were sent to Samarkand. All 15 were captured and executed. The 16^th man the Bolsheviks sent out to kill Fred Bailey was Fred Bailey himself, masquerading as an Austrian POW (and recruited by the Cheka). He eventually escaped Samarkand disguised as a Turkman."

 

I love imperial history, warts and all. Thus inspired I set out to find more about this splendid fellow and got more than I bargained for—in short, two Frederick Baileys—an irresistible BOGOF offer. 

The original Frederick Marshman Bailey was born in 1882 and died in 1967. Those two dates conjure up so many images, the man himself one of the last great players in the ‘Great Game’ surviving long enough to witness ‘Flower Power’ —(Not something that would interest him, I imagine, though he does give his name to the Himalayan Blue Poppy)—and almost long enough to see men walking on the moon.

 

His life reads like a boy’s own adventure book, a lieutenant in the Royal Bengal Lancers, transferring later to the 32^ndSikh Pioneers, he taught himself Tibetan and became fluent. In between wars, Frederick Bailey become a noted explorer, spy, botanist and zoologist. 

There is a magic to old maps that google earth can't replicate

Bailey explored obscure regions of China and Tibet, rejoining the military when World War I broke out. There, he was wounded, once on the Western Front, and twice more in the Gallipoli campaign. 

The escapade that made his name (apart from the Blue Poppy) took place in 1918, when he was sent to Tashkent to spy on the Bolshevik intentions with regard to India. The British had reason to be suspicious. Indian nationalists were planning a joint Russo-German invasion of India via Afghanistan. And it was here that Fred Bailey survived 16 assassins—the last one being himself.

But what are the odds of their being a second and equally resourceful warrior called Frederick Bailey?

This Fred Bailey died in 2023 aged 99, the last of a generation that will soon be forgotten but no doubt be reinterpreted in Hollywood movies and with more photogenic actors.

 During World War II he was recruited to the SOE, and joined one of their three man teams parachuted into occupied France to support the Resistance. He was a fast and gifted radio operator and learnt to encode and decode messages at high speed; later he trained in weaponry, sabotage and unarmed combat.

As the war in Europe neared its end he volunteered for similar activity in the far East where fighting with Japan continued. In the jungles of Burma, Bailey’s team indulged in guerrilla warfare reporting on Japanese positions, ambushing, harassing. and  subsisting on a handful of rice a day. He returned to England in November 1946 and went back to his job with the Colne Valley Water Company. 

That last sentence holds me. The contrast between danger and glamour and the mundane. His heroism was not forgotten, at least not by the French. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre and appointed to the Legion d’honneur by the French Government. 

The photos speak volumes

What is it with a name? Were the two  even related separated as they were by class? But then heroism is class in itself. Would it make things easier for MI6 and the CIA to restrict their recruitment to Fred Baileys; perhaps re-name their operatives: Fred Bailey. There could be movie franchise—'the name's Bailey. Fred Bailey.'

A Playful Landscape

 

The borderland separating England and Wales are steeped in legends, all of which I firmly believe. A case in point is the story of the predatory marsh. The geological background may or may not add weight to the story. Shobden Marsh, along with the rivers Lugg, Arrow, and Teme are largely a result of glaciation and the carving of the landscape as the icesheets retreated. For much of prehistory and up to the early middle ages the entire area was forest and marsh. This then is the background to the mysterious disappearance of ‘Old Pembridge.’

One night, the entire village was swallowed up by Shobden Marsh, and we know it is true because of a nameless fiddler possessing a pair of fine gloves: white and tied with red ribbons. 

There was a dance at Pembridge that night, and the fiddler from the neighbouring village of Eardisland provided the music. 

Eardisland

On reaching home, he realised he’d left behind his magnificent gloves and so, no doubt muttering under his breath, set off to retrieve them. He never did. Nor did he find ‘Old Pembridge.’ Where it stood was marshland glistening in moonlight.  

The marshes have since been drained, but neither  old Pembridge nor the fine white gloves adorned with red ribbons were ever found. Never mind, we have 'new' Pembridge.

There is apparently a well in the vicinity. It is said that if you drop a stone into it, you might hear it strike against the top of the old church steeple. I believe that too.

Close by is the magical village of Much Marcle whose only claim to fame is ‘The Wonder’ and the fact that the serial killer Fred West was born there. Three of his victims are buried nearby: his nanny Annie McFall and their unborn child (1967) and his first wife, Rena (1971)

But back to ‘The Wonder,’ equally traumatic but far less sordid or evil.

 

On the 17^th February, 1575 the earth moved, or strictly speaking, Marcle Hill moved. In a great roar it swallowed the chapel at Kinneston, destroying hedges, livestock, and trees. On the 19^th of February it reached its present position, where for the moment it seems content. 

The incident was recorded by the great antiquarian, William Camden (1551-1623) in his own unique and wonderful style:

‘Near the conflux of the Lugg and the Wye, eastwards, a hill which they called Marcley Hill in the year 1575 roused itself and, as it were, out of sleep, and for three days together, shoving its prodigious body forwards with a horrible roaring noise and overturning all that stood in its way, advanced itself, to the astonishment of all beholders . . .’ Some wonderful phrases there ‘roused itself’ ‘shoving its prodigious body’. One can only weep for the state of our language today. Nevertheless, I live in a playful landscape, and that is some compensation.