TV chef's reason to cheer over win for the Gurkhas
YOU may not find a Kukri among the knives in the kitchens of his world-famous restaurants but Antony Worrall Thompson can boast a proud Gurkha heritage.
His grandfather, Brigadier General Ronald Duncan, was the first British officer to take charge of training the newly-formed Brigade of Gurkhas in 1948.
And despite the 58-year-old TV chef taking a financial hammering at four of his restaurants in the recession, Gordon Brown’s decision to allow Gurkhas the right to settle in Britain caused the champagne corks to pop.
“My grandfather was a general with the 5th Gurkha Regiment,” he told the Sunday Express last night.
“It’s always been an issue I’ve followed closely and I rather wish I’d have gotten round to lending my support to the cause earlier but it’s been a particularly busy period, for me, recently.
“In any case, Joanna Lumley and the other campaigners did a wonderful job. She really didn’t need any help from me. We celebrated this week when the Government finally came to its senses.”
General Duncan was an army legend, incorporating mysticism as part of a radical new technique to help brave Gurkha soldiers resist the effects of pain.
“He’d been an officer with the British India Army until India gained independence, in 1947. The following year, the Brigade of Gurkhas was formed and my grandfather was assigned to go to Nepal and carry on with their training,” said Worrall Thompson.
“To be honest, it wasn’t an assignment he wanted. He wrote and pleaded with General Slim to give him an active post on the frontline but Slim replied that he was too valuable where he was, and I can see why.
"In many ways he was ahead of his times. I know he worked alongside a high priest, a type of Lama, and that he experimented with hypnotism and other mystical training. Gurkhas were taught how to keep going, even if they were riddled with bullets; to keep going until that hand grenade had been thrown.”
Fascinated by childhood stories of the Gurkha warriors, Worrall Thompson visited Nepal in the Eighties and met the Lama, who still had a photo of himself with his grandfather on his sideboard.
General Duncan’s other claims to fame include being the military adviser for the 1959 film North West Frontier, starring Kenneth More. The general even had a street named after him in Nepal.
Worrall Thompson’s Gurkhas connections go further. His great uncle, General Bruce Scott, was in the 2nd Gurkha Regiment, and his son, Colin Scott, was a Colonel.
He added: “I do own Kukris. I have a ceremonial one belonging to my grand- father and another, plainer one, which I think belonged to his batman. I use that as a sort of machete in the garden but it’s difficult because of the Gurkha code that once unsheathed, you have to draw blood. I end up doing what Gurkhas do to get round that – I nick the end of my finger.”
Praising the Gurkha victory, he said: “Gurkhas should always have been allowed to live here. They have risked their lives for this country for centuries. The Gurkhas are an incredible people and they deserve everything we, as a nation, can give them for the sacrifices they have made and continue to make.”
Read Antony Worrall Thompson’s recipe column in S magazine today
