Major George Raymond Seymour died on 6^th October 2010.  Born on 5^th May 1923 he was educated at Eton and was commissioned into the Regiment on 26^th September 1942.

He did not join a battalion, but went as ADC to the GOC 55^th Division, Major General W Clutterbuck in Northern Ireland and then to the British Military Mission in Cairo, whence he joined in 1947 the 2^nd Battalion in Tripoli and then Palestine, where he received a m i d in 1948.  1949 saw him joining the 1^st Battalion at Barton Stacey and Bushfield, before going with it to Sennelager, where he was Adjutant.  He left the Army as a Major in 1954, joining Whitbreads, from which he retired as Deputy Chairman in 1983.  While at Whitbreads he was appointed as an Equerry to the Queen Mother and he continued to work at Clarence House until the Queen Mothers death in 2002.

Raymond was a charming and popular member of the Celer et Audax Club, and continued to attend the annual Ladies Lunch and Regimental Dinner, even when in failing health.  We extend our sympathy to his wife Mary, two step-daughters and daughter.

From The Daily Telegraph

Major Raymond Seymour, who died on October 6 aged 87, held the rare distinction of having served as page of honour to three monarchs: George V, Edward VIII and George VI.

As such he was one of the train bearers to George VI at the 1937 Coronation.  He was then attached to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mothers Household from 1954 until her death in 2002.

 George Raymond Seymour was born on May 5 1923 into a family which descended from the Marquesses of Hertford, the Dukes of Somerset and ultimately from Henry VII and which had a tradition of serving the Royal family.

Raymonds father, Lt Col Sir Reginald Seymour, was an Equerry to George V from 1916 and after the Kings death served Queen Mary in the same capacity until he died in 1938.

Raymonds mother, Winifred, died when her son was two, and his father then married Lady Katharine Hamilton, daughter of the 3^rd Duke of Abercorn.  She had been a girlhood friend of the Queen Mother, and subsequently became an Extra Woman of the Bedchamber.  Raymond was very fond of his stepmother, who brought him up with her own three children.

He was educated at Eton and was on observation duty for the Home Guard in 1940 when bombs and incendiaries fell close by on Upper School and damaged the chapel.  In 1941 he joined the Kings Royal Rifle Corps but was injured during training.  Later he was ADC to Major General Walter Clutterbuck in Northern Ireland and Cairo.  After the war Seymour served in Palestine and Germany, reaching the rank of major.

In 1954 he joined Whitbreads but was almost immediately seconded as an Equerry to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, whose Household had recently been established at Clarence House.  His duties included attending on Princess Margaret, who lived with her mother before she married in 1960.  He returned to Whitbreads after two years but continued to work informally for Queen Elizabeth until formally appointed an Extra Equerry in 1984.

 Following the death in 1993 of the Queen Mothers long-serving Private Secretary, Sir Martin Gilliat, he was appointed Assistant Private Secretary and Equerry, working under Sir Alastair Aird.  At Clarence House he was considered a supportive, unflappable and amusing colleague.  He shared the Queen Mothers keen interest in racing, and was on duty for the first week of her annual fishing fortnight at Birkhall, near Balmoral, each May.

 At Whitbreads, Seymour was responsible for setting up its wine and spirits division and for sponsorship, of which Whitbreads was an early pioneer in this country.  This included Sir Francis Chichesters first single-handed circumnavigation of the world, the Whitbread Round the World Race, the Badminton Horse Trials and the mens tennis tournament at Queens.  He retired from Whitbreads as deputy chairman in 1983.

 In 1957 he married Mary Finnis, daughter of General Lord Ismay, KG.  Mary was a young widow with two daughters, and she and Seymour had a daughter together.

The family lived in London, but later moved to Bucklebury, near Reading, Seymour was High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1989 and a Deputy Lieutenant from 1992.

He was appointed LVO in 1972 and CVO in 1990.

Seymour had a home on the Isle of Wight from 1960, and was a former commodore and trustee of the Bembridge Sailing Club; he was instrumental in preserving the class of Bembridge One Design keel boats. 

His wife, their daughter and his stepdaughters survive him.

HRMP writes:

Raymond only got into the army because his stepmother, Katherine then Lady-in Waiting to Queen Elizabeth, badgered Sir Alan Brooke, the CIGS, to persuade the medics to overlook his fragile legs/knees and pronounce him fit for military service.  We shall never know how he managed 10 mile route marches at a Riflemans pace.

In spite of his handicap he was a keen rider and ran the stables for 2 KRRC in Palestine and for 1^st Bn in BAOR where with Tommy St Aubyn (later Adjt of the Bodyguard) as jockey he enjoyed four seasons of success over fences with King Hal a strapping brown English bred hunter.

As Adjt to Colonel Ken Collen on exercises in Germany he ran a most hospitable Bn HQ but kept away from the Parade Ground where his nominated successor, Robin Parker, reigned supreme.

Before joining 2 KRRC in 1947 Raymond had been on the staff of the British Military Mission in Cairo.  He had met Myrtle Winter then a budding Foreign Office star.  She wished to visit Jerusalem before being posted home so asked Raymond if she could stay two nights with the Bn at Gaza.  It was an unusual request but he persuaded the CO, Lyon Corbett Winder, to let her breach our monastic lifestyle and a special guard was mounted to protect her morning and evening ablutions!

Later, when with Whitbreads, he remarked of a chum who had fallen from grace in the horseracing world: His old man was the problem.  Such quiet humour and wit fascinated the girls and he was an auto choice when business or club needed a cool negotiator.

These two takes illustrate his unique talent for making and keeping friends.  At Bembridge in August he and Mary entertained generously each evening on their two tennis courts.  Of course he enjoyed watching his family and friends play but always reserved the last match for a special contest pour les anciens combatants.  In the match his dipping serve and scooped-up lob often proved decisive.  As a sailor and Commodore of Bembridge One Design Club boats he was an intrepid helmsman especially in Force 7 winds.  No matter if the hapless crew was drenched when baling or occasionally launched into the sea when trying to grab the mooring buoy!

Alas, the last few years were spoiled by pain and illness but he remained very much the skipper at the wheel of Mary Anne the family fishing boat.