Deputy Chief of Defence (Intelligence) for the RAF
Born April 20, 1922
Died February 13, 2007
Air Marshal Sir Richard Wakeford was the high-flying RAF career officer whose love of fly-fishing gave him new life in north Scotland. He fished the Spey and as many lochs and rivers as an active octogenarian might accomplish.
With his late wife, Anne, Sir Richard bought a holiday cottage at Inchberry in Moray in 1985, just above his beloved Spey. So much did they take to their new life that, two years later, Inchberry became their permanent home, and he bought the fishing rights to a stretch of the river nearby.
For three years from 1975, Sir Richard had been Deputy chief of Defence (Intelligence), responsible for both collection of intelligence material and preparation of intelligence product, plus analysis of source material to advise policy creation throughout government. His areas of interest included military capabilities and threats, counter-terrorism and geo-political stability.
Richard Gordon Wakeford was a Devon man born in Torquay and educated in England's maritime county, but whose love for Scotland grew from a wartime posting as a young RAF officer. He joined the RAF as a trainee pilot in 1940, aged just 17, and was shipped to the US for pilot training under a special scheme operated by the Americans, who at that time had not entered the war but were attempting to assist the UK war effort. He graduated to Catalina flying boats, spending two years in Karachi, from where he flew convoy and anti-Japanese submarine patrols over the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. It was a posting to Sullom Voe in Shetland that introduced him to Scotland.
For two years after the war, he flew heavy transport on overseas routes. His talents led to a post as flying instructor at Central Flying School and RAF Cranwell, and by 1954, as a wing commander, he was RAF staff officer in Kuala Lumpur during the Malayan Emergency. His work as director of emergency operations gained him an OBE, and in 1958 he joined the Queen's Flight, flying members of the Royal Family and cabinet ministers all over the world.
In 1960, aged 40, he became the youngest group captain to command an RAF station when he took charge of the Vulcan V-bomber base at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, once home to 617 (Dambuster) Squadron. In 1967 he returned to Scotland, this time to Pitreavie Castle in Fife as Air Officer Scotland and Northern Ireland. His final posting before promotion to air marshal was to Singapore as commander of the combined Australia and New Zealand UK force.
Retirement and a return to Scotland couldn't come quickly enough for Richard and Anne. They settled initially in Perthshire, and he became commissioner for the Queen Victoria School at Dunblane, as well as taking on air responsibility for Lowland TA. He became involved with, and ultimately chairman of, the MacRobert Trust, the ex- service charity, and it was in that role that he collected the President's Medal of the Royal Academy of Engineering from the Duke of Edinburgh.
A committed Christian, he was much involved with the work of the Order of St John in Scotland, and in 1986 was appointed to the rank of commander in the order. His adoption of Moray included a very active association with Gordon Chapel in Fochabers.
He died from cancer of the oesophagus in hospital in Aberdeen. He was predeceased by a daughter, Sally, and in 2002 by his beloved wife Anne. He is survived by his remaining children, Richard, Susan and Christopher, and six grandchildren.
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