Free Someone Wishes to Speak to You by Jeremy Mallinson Page A

luxury Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni at Bellagio, on the shores of Lake Como.
    Sally Parkinson had been born at the family’s manor house, Howgill Hall, in Gilstead near Bingley, Yorkshire. After schooling at Harrogate Ladies’ College she had spent a year at the famous Swiss ladies’ finishing school of Château Mont-Choisi in Lausanne, undergoing classes in etiquette, training in cultural and social activities, as well as learning French and Italian. Since marrying Colin Duncan she had wholeheartedly thrown herself into charity work for the underprivileged and energetic fundraising for the cottage hospitals in Ilkley and Skipton. Although she had always beendesperately anxious not to be considered by others as a snob, she had found it almost impossible not to socially pigeonhole the people she met. Did they have a handle to their name? Were they from the top social drawer, or perhaps from the second drawer? Or could they be categorised as rather undesirable – would it be rather counterproductive to be seen in their company?
    One of his mother’s ancestors, Robert Milligan, had settled in Bradford in 1810 when it was only a small village. He had taken an active interest in public affairs and had soon become an influential figure. He served as the Borough of Bradford’s first mayor during 1847-1848 and in 1851 was elected as a Church Liberal MP. Following the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, the Milligan/Parkinson family, the second generation of which had married first cousins in order to keep family wealth within their ranks, had always been immensely proud of their ancestor’s support for the total abolition of black slavery in the British colonies, as well as his active interest in promoting the emancipation of West Indian slaves. Mathew’s maternal grandfather, Albert Milligan Parkinson, had died in 1932 and had left his only daughter a sizeable fortune.
    The Duncans’ first child, Sebastian, had been born just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, in May 1939. It had not been long after his birth that their father had volunteered to join the British Army and gained a commission in the 12th Royal Lancers. The regiment had been raised in 1715 against the threat of the Jacobite rebellion, and seventy-four years later had a young Duke of Wellington serving in it as a subaltern. The 12th Lancers were proud of the fact that their first battle honour had been won in Egypt in 1801, a country in which 2nd Lieutenant Duncan was soon to serve. During the war the regiment played a key role as an armoured car division in shielding the British Army’s retreat from Dunkirk, and it was during this time that Colin Duncan was‘mentioned in dispatches’. Subsequent to Dunkirk he was with the regiment when it fought with distinction at the Battle of El Alamein and, later on in the war, the 12th Royal Lancers played a significant role as a corps-led reconnaissance asset with the Allied Forces in their advance through northern Italy.
    After being promoted to captain, it was due to his bravery in single-handedly taking out a German machine gun post that Captain Duncan was awarded a Military Cross. In April 1945 the regiment entered Venice, and after D-Day he celebrated with his fellow officers at the famous Locanda Cipriani restaurant on the nearby island of Torcello. It had been during the Italian campaign that he had become great friends with a brother officer, Roger Willock, who prior to the war had joined the Diplomatic Corps. This friendship was to prove most advantageous to Mathew in years to come.
    In 1962, while Mathew was at Wellington College (a school that his father had most probably chosen for both of his sons due to his regiment’s association with the Duke of Wellington), that Mathew’s eighty-five-year-old grandfather had died and his father had inherited the baronetcy. Sir Colin was a tall, handsome man with a charismatic, commanding presence and a full head of snow-white hair, which was suitably matched