Major-General Sir Colin Gubbins
From Lacey Green History
Research by Joan West
Major-General Sir Colin Gubbins purchased White House Farm in 1952.
The following extracts are taken from "GUBBINS & SOE" by Peter Wilkinson and Joan Bright Astley. Published by Pen & Sword Books Limited. Leo Cooper.
"Major-General Sir Colin Gubbins, leader of the Special Operations Executive in WW2, had retired from the army. His second wife, Tulla, searched and found White House Farm at Lacey Green in the Chilterns, a delightful house with a garden and an orchard, easily accessible from London.
Colin was an enthusiastic and "very good gardener", said Tulla, " planted everything in straight lines, like a regiment,".
He was in fact an enthusiast in all that he did, not least in his self-education. He visited art galleries, he read novels, and he went to the ballet, which he loved. He was sixty- five years old when he started learning to play the concertina which, he said, he found "a most effective aid to tranquillity", though he doubted whether his wife felt the same."
"Lacey Green was their base in England for twenty three years. 'Obbe' the house in Leverburgh, Isle of Harris, Scotland, was their true love, where they went as often as they could between their social and business commitments and their travels for SOE reunions and functions." (Put 'obituary' in Search for other life histories)
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