GRAHAME, Maj Iain 1932-2023
Richard R
He was s of Lewis Gretton GRAHAME OF CLAVERHOUSE d 1961 and Eira Grey 1897-1940 d of Sir Frederick William WIGAN 2nd Bt 1859-1907 and Elizabeth Adair 1857-1902 d of Lt-Col Francis Douglas GREY 1828-1901 (gs of 1st Earl GREY 1729-1807) and Sarah d 1901 d of Francis MOWATT MP 1803-91 by his 28 Dec 1828 m (St Martin in the Fields) to Sarah Sophia BARNES 1805-1885. He m 1st 1960 (divo 1969) Susan d’Esterre b 1937 d of Capt Sir Gerald CURTEIS KCVO RN 1892-1972 scion of that gentry family of Windmill Hill and his 2nd w Mary Dolla d of Walter G DARBY, and had a son and a dau. He m 2nd 1972 (div 1995) Diana Colville d of Vice-Adml Sir (Edward) Gerard Napier MANSFIELD KBE CVO 1921-2006 (3xgt gs of 3rd Baron TALBOT OF MALAHIDE 1767-1850) and Joan Worship 1914- d of Cmdr John BYRON DSC. He m 3rd 2002 Carolyn Elizabeth (Bunny Campione the antiques expert) b 1946 d of S/Ldr Francis Colborne FISHER, of Mudeford, Hants and Iris (sister of the film actor Stewart Granger) d of Maj James STEWART OBE 1861-1938 and Frederica Eliza LABLACHE.
Richard R
Obit in the Times of 13 Sep 2023:#
E X T R A C T
Major Iain Grahame obituary
Naturalist and commanding officer to Idi Amin who saved a British citizen from execution by sending the dictator two peafowl
… Iain Grahame was born in London in 1932 and spent his early years in Cobham, Surrey. His father, Lewis, a former army officer discharged during the First World War for insisting on fighting with a bow and arrow, left his mother when his son was five and became an artist in Paris. His mother, Eira, was killed by a German bomb when Grahame was seven.
He and his younger sister Eila went to live with their aristocratic uncle, Denis Wigan, at his Suffolk estate, Loudham Hall. His father allegedly lost the custody battle when the judge was told that he had no real job or permanent address, and that Wigan had scored a century for Eton.
His uncle left him in the care of his gamekeeper during the school holidays, which is where Grahame developed a love of natural history — an interest encouraged by Alec Douglas-Home, the future prime minister, who was a friend of Wigan’s and often stayed at Loudham. Together they would chase butterflies in the fields by day and catch moths at night…
… Grahame left the army in 1963, by which time the Lord Lyon, the Scottish heraldic authority, had recognised him as Grahame of Claverhouse and Duntrune (head of his clan), after his father’s death. He and his first wife, Susan d’Esterre Curteis, bought Daws Hall, a part-Tudor, part-Georgian farmhouse with 35 acres beside the River Stour on the Suffolk-Essex border… Grahame had two children with his first wife: Angus, now an entrepreneur; and Katrina, a garden photographer. That marriage ended in divorce, as did his second to Diana Colville. In 2000 he married Bunny Campione, an antiques expert who appears regularly on the BBC programme Antiques Roadshow. They first met when their cars crashed head-on in a Suffolk lane, writing off both vehicles. Grahame produced a bottle of brandy to calm her…
…In 1988 he set up the Daws Hall Trust, which has since brought more than 120,000 schoolchildren from Suffolk, Essex and London to the nature reserve he had created on his land to teach them about natural history.
Grahame died after a fall in his kitchen. By then he had had eight new hips and one new knee after a life of strenuous activity. He was a bit like a “walking museum piece”, his widow remarked.
Major Iain Grahame, naturalist, was born in London on July 1, 1932. He died on September 4, 2023, aged 91
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/major-iain-grahame-obituary-8qsmlwtl6