I regret to announce that John Watts, formerly an officer with the OBLI died on 1st November 2011. 

Obituary

Lieutenant John Watts

The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry

John Ponsonby Watts was born on 26 December 1936 in Devon and educated at Radley followed by a history degree in London. He was commissioned in December 1956 and joined the Regiment in July 1957 in Cyprus during the EOKA Emergency. The Regiment was moved from Nicosia to the south of the Island to Limassol responsible for internal security of the Town and the Port, Headquarters Middle East Land Forces at Episcopi and RAF Akrotiri in addition to a large area stretching up to the Troodos Mountains. John was posted to Letter B Company under Peter Hayter, a most charismatic leader who had fought in the Italian campaign in 1944. John commanded his platoon with characteristic enthusiasm during the companys internal security operations. The search for Colonel Grivas and his guerrilla team of leaders was relentless and John immersed himself in all company activities which he relished.

The Regiment, now re-titled 1^st Green Jackets 43^rd and 52^nd, was posted to Knook Camp at Heytesbury in Wiltshire as Demonstration Battalion at the School of Infantry, Warminster in 1962. The Battalion was very much in the public eye and standards were high. With his relaxed enthusiasm, John enjoyed the demands of the role and Mess life. He was independently minded which he demonstrated many times by his favourite method of travel, hitch-hiking, which he did regularly everywhere including to the South of France.

After leaving the Army he became a schoolmaster and taught History and Rugby at a number of schools. In 1994 John retired to the family home in Seaton, Kent.  He worked in a voluntary capacity for the Citizens Advice Bureau and also as a part-time gardener and was very much part of the local community. John was a man of individual character, loved and admired by many.

John Watts died on 1 November 2011, aged 74, and is survived by his wife, Emmy (née Platten) whom he married in 1965, and by his son and daughter, Tim and Lucy, both of whom followed in their fathers footsteps into the teaching profession.

Gorge Elliott