In Conversation

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?

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

university could hardly be more complete and I became a living example of education being wasted on the young. I loved every minute and specialised in First World War literature.

The memories of my more conventional career are mostly about people and places. I spent the first Gulf War in Kurdistan in Northern Iraq as chief of staff of the Commando Brigade. The Kurds are historically fated, wonderfully attractive, usually exasperating but rarely dull and I have recently felt a sort of vicarious pride in watching them lead the fight against ISIS in Syria.

I later commanded the Commando Brigade in the Balkans where Kosovo made a real impression on me, for all sorts of reasons. It was where the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires rubbed up against each other; it was about Albanian and Serbian identity; it was about the mix of Islam, Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity; and, unfortunately, about endemic corruption, criminality and tribalism.

In 2001 I became the professional head of the Royal Marines as Commandant General, something which was then and remains a matter of great pride. What I couldn’t foresee then was that there was about to be another detour, this time for the whole world and not just me.

I was in Norfolk, Virginia on 9/11, and, after a few days in Washington, boarded what was probably the first flight to leave American airspace since the attack on the twin towers. On board the RAF aircraft was a selection of the waifs and strays of British official life that included Prince Andrew, John Major and Richard Dearlove, the then head of MI6. It was a gin clear and windless day and the flight path took us directly over New York where the gaping hole where the twin towers had been looked like a missing tooth in the city’s jawline. It was one of the photographs of the century, but nobody had a camera.

The Wars of 9/11 then dominated the rest of my military career. I became the Director of Operations in the MoD, responsible for all British operations globally but with an obvious focus on Afghanistan and Iraq. This was operating at a different level where military operations meet political consideration and all the ramifications, compromises and difficulties that involves.

My last job in military service was as Deputy Commanding General of coalition forces in Iraq. The summer of 2006 was the most violent period of the war and it was a salutary experience. As always, military force could only try to hold the ring; political process alone can find a solution.

DB What do you put your spectacular career down to?

RF I was fortunate to stumble across something for which I felt I had a genuine vocation and not everyone is lucky enough to find that. I never had to make compromises. I always saw the purpose of what I was doing and that it was going somewhere.

DB What have you done since leaving the Marines?

RF I felt I had another job in me and so was delighted to be offered the role of vice president of Hewlett Packard. It was a different life but a business review in Silicon Valley felt remarkably like a campaign assessment in Baghdad. I also became an early trustee of Help for Heroes. I thought I was joining a charity and didn’t realise until later that I had become part of a spontaneous political movement.

At the same time as Hewlett Packard, I returned to academia. I had a year’s visiting fellowship at Oxford and then became a visiting professor at both Reading and King’s, while things came full circle when Bath gave me an honorary doctorate. I’ve also dabbled a bit in journalism, writing for Prospect Magazine - the house journal of the chattering classes and a perfect contrast to military life.

Today, most of my time is taken up as chair of a small company that deals with communications in places like Somalia, Sudan and Ukraine. It involves social media and artificial intelligence in ways I can barely understand but fortunately I have the help of clever people decades younger than me to whom it is all second nature.

DB What have you learnt along the way?

RF Do what you’re good at and not what you are told to do. Also, in the long-term things often sort themselves out when left to their own devices. And, if your personal life is happy and solid, everything else follows. In sum: do what you enjoy, take up with the right person and let life sort itself out.

DB What changes have you seen from a military point of view?

RF We are going through a period which is reorientating global power with implications we do not yet fully understand. I would never count America out but it has been profligate with the way it’s spent its power in the last 20 years.

DB What about changes in society and the UK?

RF Almost all for the good. The level of tolerance and prosperity this country has enjoyed in recent years would have been inconceivable as I was growing up. >

That said, I don’t fully understand what it means to be woke and I find cancel-culture rather sinister.

DB What brought you to West Dorset?

RF Sherborne, the place and the people. For a community of this size to do what it does makes it an extraordinarily active place to be.

DB What do you do in your down time?

RF Covid has kept me in Dorset for most of the last year and that gave the opportunity to walk most of the coastal path and do a lot of wild swimming.

DB Do you have a personal wish?

RF Wales have only once in my lifetime beaten New Zealand at rugby and I would like to live to see it happen again!

DB Do you have a wish for Sherborne?

RF The exodus from London has started and Bruton is nationally the most searched location for country property, with Sturminster Newton not far behind. With places like The Newt, The Clockspire and new arts and cultural facilities that are being developed, this area could become the new Cotswolds. That would be a mixed blessing, but, if it happens, Sherborne must be part of it.