Ernest Harwood served as personal clerk to Montgomery in North Africa during the war and later became chief executive officer for North Devon.
But he will be remembered by many as a "Yorkshireman
abroad", who lived for his walking (he was a colleague of Arthur Wainwright) and
relished the challenge of lighting bonfires in torrential rain or brewing tea in high winds.
He was born in Castleford, in what was then the West Riding, and at 12 his secondary school headmaster identified his “good public spirit.” His
administrative skills (he had qualified as a chartered
secretary) blossomed during the war with the RASC in the Mediterranean theatre.
As chief clerk under Sir Francis Guingand – chief of staff of the 8th Army – and
personal clerk to General Montgomery, he typed the
handwritten orders for the Battle of Alamein. Monty approved the typescript without reading it, consigning Harwood to a night of double checking his version word for word against the original. At the
end of the war, Monty acknowledged his role with the gift of one of only a dozen or so signed
copies of his messages to the 8th Army.
After the war he returned to local government, by then a solicitor, and in 1973 he became chief executive officer for North Devon. As returning officer for Jeremy Thorpe’s constituency, he featured on the clip shown repeatedly
on television during the Norman Scott affair.
Ernest Harwood never forgot his background in the Yorkshire mining communities
and his socialist principles. He chose not to attend the funeral of Henry Williamson on political grounds and he was proud to be able
to support generously the striking miners of Allerton Bywater, near Leeds. He never lost his individuality either and in his official capacity he cycled from Devon to Yorkshire
for charity in his early sixties.
