SIR JOHN WILSON

Sir John Wilson, KCB, former second permanent under-secretary at the Ministry of Defence died on July 26 aged 77. He was born on September 3, 1915. AFTER four years as private secretary to the Minister of Supply in Clement Attlee's postwar Labour government, John Wilson was given a framed print by the minister, George Strauss.. Strauss, who died only -last month, in - scribed a personal message on the back: 'To the best princi - pal private secretary who ever served a minister." The com - pliment was more than a formality. Clever, courteous and meticulous in his work, John Wilson was an immacu - late civil servant. ' •" .':' '?,: '^'

His family teased him for being a role model for Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Whitehall mandarin in Yes Minister on. television. But one of Wilson's strengths was that he would frequently say "no Minister ". In recent years he looked on in dismay as senior officials. apparently gave way to unwise demands. John Martindale Wilson was bom in Madras; the son of a businessman who died when his elder son was only five. Left with three young children , his mother returned to England to find a job. She sent John to Bradfield where he played cricket for the school, then to Gonville and Caius .College, Cambridge, where hard work earned him a double first in law. He had

thought of joining the Indian civil service, returning to the land of his birth. But he did so well in the civil...