KOHIMA EDUCATIONAL TRUST - Key Persons
He is an Analyst and Forecaster who has worked in accountancy, the Stock Market and in Company Rescue. He was educated in the Classical Languages and qualified as a
Chartered Accountant. The majority of his career was as an Equities Analyst in stockbroking. Latterly, he was FD for a Company Turnaround Specialist. He is an ongoing student of Evolutionary Psychology and seeks to understand why people do what they do. He is now a Financial Consultant, working for both charities and commercial organisations.
Trustee. Angus' uncle, Lieutenant Charles Barclay of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, was killed in action at the battle of Kohima.
After graduating from the University of Edinburgh with a degree in History, Angus Barclay has led a very international working life, spending nearly all his career overseas with the Swire group and Cathay Pacific Airways, working in Hong Kong (five times!), Korea, India, The Netherlands, Singapore and Australia.
Angus' uncle, Lieutenant Charles Barclay of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, was killed in action at the battle of Kohima. For this reason, Kohima has always been of great interest to Angus and he learned more of the Naga culture through friends he made whilst working in India in the early 90s.
Angus made a very memorable first visit to Kohima in February 2012.
Trustee. Ben's father Lieutenant Philip Brownless was at the Battle of Kohima in 1944
Ben Brownless is a Geography graduate. His father is a Kohima veteran. Ben and his father visited Kohima in 2008. Ben is specializing in educational links between Nagaland and the UK.
After 35 years teaching Geography, Design Technology & Outdoor Activities and working as a deputy head for ten years, Ben is now a 'jack of all trades' running a handyman business.
Ben Brownless is a trustee of three charities, including KET, and volunteers in the community with a variety of organisations. He is pictured above standing in front of the cathedral in Kohima during his visit in 2008.
Nigel Stock is a British Church of England bishop. Bishop Nigel's uncle was Major Roger Stock of the 2nd Battalion Durham Light Infantry who was killed aged 25 on 23rd April 1944 in action at Garrison Hill during the battle for Kohima.
Nigel Stock is a British Church of England bishop. Ordained in 1976 he served in the Diocese of Durham then spent five years with the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea before returning to serve in two parishes in the Diocese of Newcastle. After a time as a residentiary Canon of Durham Cathedral he became suffragan bishop of Stockport and then diocesan bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. From 2013 until his 2017 retirement, he was Bishop at Lambeth, Bishop to the Forces and Bishop for the Falkland Islands. Bishop Nigel's uncle was Major Roger Stock of the 2nd Battalion Durham Light Infantry who was killed aged 25 on 23rd April 1944 in action at Garrison Hill during the battle for Kohima. He is married to Carolyne whose father Richard Greswell served with the West African Frontier Force in Burma. They have three sons and six grandchildren.
Andrew Hunter, Treasurer, is the son of a fellow Cameron Highlander who fought at Kohima alongside our Founder.
Trustee. Charlotte's grandfather was Lt Col William Felix Brown, CO of the Assam Regiment at the Battle of Kohima.
Charlotte grew up in Surrey and, upon graduating from Christ's College, Cambridge, qualified as a solicitor and pursued a career in the Law. After a break to raise her family and time spent in various countries for her husband's postings, she started work once again back in the UK, this time within the education sector.
Charlotte's grandfather was Lt Col William Felix Brown, CO of the Assam Regiment at the Battle of Kohima. He was killed on 6th January 1945 in action near Shwebo in Burma.
She is married to Tim and has three children.
Job Titles:
- Officer in the British Army
Colonel Ian Hargreaves commanded 2 Signal Regiment from 2013 to 2016. This Regiment is the only remaining un-amalgamated British Army unit that fought at Kohima.
As Commanding Officer, Ian was an ex-officio trustee and has been privileged to remain a regular trustee since 2016. Additionally he is a trustee of the Kohima Museum, located in his hometown of York.
Ian has visited most countries in the Indian subcontinent including Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal. His first visit to Nagaland was in April 2014 as part of a military delegation to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of Kohima. Committed to sustaining the memory of those who fought, he returned a year later in order to learn more about the Battle with a team of 20 British and Gurkha soldiers.
Job Titles:
- an Author and Military Historian, Publishing Books in Particular on the War in the Far East
- KET Trustee
KET trustee Dr Robert Lyman's blog The War Room features an article written by KET founder & Kohima veteran…
Born in New Zealand in January 1963 and educated in Australia, Robert Lyman was, for twenty years, an officer in the British Army.
Educated at Scotch College, Melbourne he was commissioned into the Light Infantry from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, in April 1982.
In addition to a business career he is an author and military historian, publishing books in particular on the war in the Far East. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Robert is married to Hannah, has two sons, and lives in Berkshire.
Ron Clayton's interest in Kohima dates from the 1960s, when he first read Slim's Defeat into Victory.
Ron was born and bred in Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia and received his early education there and BA, MA Diploma in Education at the University of New England in Armidale, NSW.
He subsequently taught history and literature there until 1968, when he came to the UK to work for his D.Phil. in York with Gerald Aylmer, who in 1971 invited Ron to join the History department. He remained in the UK, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, until his retirement in 2006.
Ron Clayton has served his time on university and departmental committees, repeatedly as chair of the departmental board of examiners, and of the joint board of the English and History departments. He was chair of the History department from 1997-2005. He was appointed Dean of Langwith college in the University of York, and retained that position until the late 1980s. He was Provost of Langwith college, from 1996-2006.
Ron is married to Azizah, and they have two children - a son, who lives in York, and a daughter, an Air Vice Marshal in the RAF.
Job Titles:
- Founder
- President
- Our Founder
- Publisher - Obituary the Telegraph
William Gordon Graham was born in Glasgow on July 17 1920 and educated at Hutcheson's Grammar School, Glasgow, and Glasgow University, where he read Law. He was commissioned into the QOCH in 1941 and served with the 1st Battalion in India and Burma.
In the fighting around Kohima in May and June 1944, he carried out long and hazardous patrols deep into enemy occupied territory. The citation for the award of his first MC paid tribute to the magnificent example that he set by his courage, initiative and inspiring leadership.
Towards the end of the war he became a press relations officer on the staff of General Auchinleck and wrote feature stories, news dispatches and book reviews as well as working unpaid for the Times of India. In 1946, he was demobilised, but London held few attractions for him and he returned to India and worked as a freelance newspaper correspondent in Bombay.
In 1949, he augmented his income as a journalist with part-time work for the McGraw-Hill Book Company. It was a job which enabled him to meet and interview the country's leading statesmen and his responsibilities were gradually extended to Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma and the rest of south-east Asia.
Late in 1955, he was offered the job of international sales manager of the McGraw Hill Book Company and moved to New York. In 1963, he was made managing director of McGraw-Hill for the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In Graham's own words, this was "a task, in those days, akin to setting up a Japanese watch factory in Switzerland".
He worked for International Publishing Corporation from 1975 to 1982 and was then headhunted by Reed International. He was appointed chief executive of Butterworths, the legal publishers, and transformed a rather uninspiring company into one of the jewels in Reed's crown.
In 1986, Graham was elected president of the Publishers' Association. He dedicated himself to improving relations with booksellers and librarians, and strenuously supported and upheld the rights of authors and publishers in the negotiations which led to the Copyright Act of 1988.
In retirement, he and his wife founded the academic journal, Logos, devoted to matters of publishing and book-selling. He was also the guiding spirit behind the creation of the Kohima Educational Trust, founded by veterans of the Battle of Kohima, in gratitude to the Naga people of north-east India who had supported the Allies during the battles with the Japanese in 1944.
Throughout his career in the book world, Graham was an innovator, an inspirational manager who used charm and leadership to achieve his aims, and a talented wordsmith, both in his writing and in his public speaking.
Among his many interests he listed writing, landscape gardening, fostering transatlantic understanding and singing sentimental songs. He published books, essays and articles. These included As I was Saying (1994), Butterworths: History of a Publishing House (1997) and The Trees are all Young on Garrison Hill (2005).
Gordon Graham, who has died aged 94, was one of the most influential publishers of his time and was also awarded two Military Crosses in the Second World War.
On the night of February 24 1945, Graham was commanding a company of the 1st Battalion The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders (1 QOCH) in a forced crossing of the Irrawaddy River about 25 miles west of Mandalay. He led the assault in a light rubber boat which was paddled by hand in an attempt to achieve complete surprise, but as they reached the bank they came under heavy machine gun fire from the Japanese.
Despite the casualties around him, Graham brought the craft through the fire without wavering and as soon as it grounded he led his company in an assault up the steep 50 ft high bank. They established a solid bridgehead on the south bank and held it until they were reinforced.
Other landings, however, did not succeed and Graham was ordered to deploy half a mile to the west where the battalion's flank was dangerously exposed. Moving by night through elephant grass 15 ft high, he set up a new position and held it despite the enemy's determined efforts to surround him and dislodge him. For his "magnificent contempt of danger and superb handling of a critical situation" he was awarded a Bar to his MC.
Without Gordon Graham, the KET would not exist. It would certainly not still be thriving nearly twenty after its formation, and would not have raised over a million pounds and achieved the work in Nagaland that it has. Gordon was a man of vision, amongst many other attributes, and none more so than in his conception of KET. The idea had lain dormant in his mind for many years until he was invited to be part of the committee to plan the 60th Anniversary of the Battle of Kohima and urged members to commemorate the battle in a more permanent way.
Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, Gordon joined the 1st Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, and in 1942, along with thousands of others, was sent to Bombay. His war really started in April 1944, when the Japanese invaded India. Gordon was part of the 2nd Division, which was rushed to Kohima to aid the stricken garrison. The battle lasted for three months, in dense jungle, much of it in hand-to-hand combat. This was where Gordon was awarded the first of his two Military Crosses.
He went back to Kohima in 1954, a journey he described in an article subsequently published in The Times of London, entitled ‘The Trees are All Young on Garrison Hill'. Latterly, Gordon revisited this article and condensed it into four verses, which he felt epitomised the past, the present and the future: war, memory and gratitude. Gordon always maintained that without the help of the Nagas, the British and Commonwealth soldiers could not have won that battle, and would certainly not have survived in the numbers they did. For sixty years, Gordon thought about how to repay this debt of honour. When he approached a Naga friend with this idea, the immediate response was ‘you have not forgotten us'. Together with fellow veterans, they made it happen.
Sylvia May was born in New Jersey, USA in 1957. Her parents moved to England in 1963. Educated at High Wycombe School for Girls, she decided to pursue a career in the world of books.
Sylvia worked for HarperCollins for 37 years, the last eleven of which she headed up their UK-based International Sales team. She left the company in 2013 in order to be able to focus on KET.
Sylvia May is the daughter of the late Gordon Graham, Founder and President of the Kohima Educational Trust. She is proud that her father inspired many people to share his vision to commemorate those who fought and died in Kohima, and the wonderful Naga people who have done so much for the British in the past. She is now actively working to put something back into the community and promote the work of the Trust in Kohima.
Sylvia first visited India in 1994 with her husband Robert, and has returned on many occasions, staying in Kohima several times.
Job Titles:
- Retired Regular Soldier, Spent Many Years in the 2nd Division
A retired regular soldier, Bob Cook spent some years in the 2nd Division. His father and older brother also served in the 2nd Division. His thirty-five years in the Army included service in Cyprus, Germany and Northern Ireland.
Born in 1948 in Wuppertal, Germany, Bob is part of a continuing family trend of military service dating back almost without a break for over 160 years. After serving for 35 years in the Royal Signals, Bob retired to York in 1998 where he now owns a small Guest House.
Stephen White: After studying history at Cambridge University, Steve's career included academic and professional publishing, and media intelligence.
He is now retired, but keeps busy with his family, especially his grandchildren, walking, reading, charitable work and playing the saxophone. He and Anne live in Oxfordshire.
KET Chief Executive Officer. Sylvia is the daughter of the late Major Gordon Graham MC who was a veteran of the battle of Kohima and subsequently the Founder and President of the Kohima Educational Trust.