IN CONVERSATION WITH SIR ROBERT FRY David Birley
DB What was your childhood like? RF I had as enjoyable a childhood as I can imagine. I was born in Cardiff and grew up in South Wales. My father was a machinist and a shop steward and my mother worked for Marks and Spencer. I went to school in Cardiff but failed the 11+ so went to a secondary modern before moving on to grammar school to do A levels. I read economics at Bath University as I thought that was a sensible route into business and management; what I didn’t realise was that I had no talent for the subject or the vocation. My first experience of university life was a lot of fun but academically completely undistinguished. DB How did your career evolve? RF After Bath, I went to New York to make my fortune. I loved every minute of living in America but it quickly became apparent that I wasn’t much good at a sedentary office existence and that fortune eluded me. Instead, I left New York and became an itinerant bum and wandered around America chopping down trees, tending bars or taking whatever jobs were going. I will always have a genuine but not uncritical love of the country, and I have been back most years since. DB What led you to join the Marines? 110 | Sherborne Times | February 2021
RF By this time it was pretty clear what I was no good at; unfortunately it was less clear where my talents might lie, if indeed there were any. So it looked like the right time to try a radical alternative and, after a bit of reflection, I joined the Royal Marines. My military career is interesting as much for its detours away from conventional soldiering as it is for the more regulation stuff. The first of those happened when a notice to apply for what was cryptically called Special Duties in Northern Ireland caught my eye. A rather uncomfortable selection course followed after which a small group of us went through a fascinating programme of counter terrorist techniques before deploying for undercover operations in Northern Ireland. I had also recently met Liz and we got married ten days before the selection course. Two years of almost continuous separation then followed but, rather improbably, we’re still here over 40 years later. What started then as Special Duties became the Special Reconnaissance Regiment in 2005 and I had the singular pleasure of becoming its inaugural Regimental Colonel. The next detour was a sabbatical year in 1986 to undertake a master’s degree in War Studies at King’s College, London. The contrast with my first spell at
