Lieutenant Colonel Sir Alfred Blake KCVO MC LLB DL Royal Marines

Sir ‘Alf’ Blake, who has died aged 98, gave his life to public service in the armed forces, local politics, the law, and to numerous charities, particularly those caring for young people.

In a life of outstanding public service in many fields, Blake’s proudest achievement, and in his opinion his most significant and rewarding came when in 1967 he was invited by HRH Duke of Edinburgh to succeed Brigadier Sir John Hunt, leader of the 1953 conquest of Mount Everest, as the director of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.  The award scheme encourages young people to enrich their lives and thereby the lives of others, and provides training in citizenship for young people and the opportunity to improve their life experiences, their employability and their physical fitness.

The scheme, for boys aged 15-18, started under Hunt in 1956 and borrowed heavily from a model introduced to Gordonstoun school where the Duke had been educated, by its headmaster, Kurt Hahn, in 1934.   The Duke’s scheme was intended to attract boys who were not been interested in joining uniformed organisations such as the Boy Scouts.   In the first 12 months, 7,000 boys enrolled for the scheme, and in 1958 a modified scheme was opened to girls. 

Under Blake a single programme for all young people, boys and girls, aged 14 to 21 was launched in 1969:  his twelve years of directorship were a period of consolidation which laid the foundations for the scheme to grow.   Now after more than half a century the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award has involved millions of young people, has been taken up in the Commonwealth and been copied in other countries such as Ireland and Israel.  

            Blake was appointed CVO in 1975 and knighted KCVO in 1979.

            Alfred Lapthorn Blake was born on October 6, 1915 in Gosport, Hampshire. His mother was the top woman mathematician (and 13th  overall) in her final year at Cambridge, and his father top in his law examinations.  Young Blake joked that his first school was the Girls’ High, where the junior section used to be mixed, but his main schooling was at Dauntsey’s in Wiltshire.   He read law at London University and qualified as a solicitor in 1938.

            On the outbreak of the Second World War Blake immediately volunteered and was one of the first young officers to be commissioned as wartime second lieutenants in the Royal Marines.  Blake passed the Army Staff Course at Camberley, and joined the staff of 2^nd   Special Service Brigade , becoming the brigade major to Brigadier Tom Churchill in Italy in 1943.   In 1944 the brigade lost its much-disliked ‘SS’ designation and was renamed  2 Commando Brigade.   Blake saw action in Italy and in the Adriatic, and based on the island of Vis fought alongside Yugoslav partisans under Tito.   Vis was well north of the Germans front lines in both Italy and the Balkans, and Blake regarded his luck as two-fold:  that the Germans did not attack his island and he missed the carnage of D-day on the beaches of Normandy.

            Later Blake landed in Albania and was at the liberation of Sarandë on October 9 1944, and at the liberation of Corfu a few days later [the 14^th].  Blake was awarded the Military Cross for his courage, tenacity and skill whilst serving with the Allied armies in the Mediterranean.

            Next he became second-in-command of 45 Commando in December 1944 in North West Europe and fought at the battle of Montforterbeek on January 23 1945 when his commando was held up by well-prepared German defences behind the Montforterbeek dyke. After hard fighting in bitterly cold weather and over flat ground covered in snow, the leading troops achieved their objectives, while Blake’s headquarters and the remainder of the commando, lying in the snow and frozen with cold, were subjected to heavy shelling and suffered numerous casualties. During the action Lance Corporal H E Harden  RAMC earned the Victoria Cross for crawling in the snow across 120 yards of open ground to dress the wounds of three casualties and then carrying one man back under intense mortar and machine-gun fire before returning with a stretcher party for the other two. While bringing back the third man he was shot through the head and killed.

            In spite of a determined night counter-attack during in which hand-to-hand fighting took place in front of the slit trenches, 45 Commando held its newly gained positions.   A special order of the day read:  “Well done Royal Marines! You put up a fine show today.”  Blake was mentioned in despatches.

            When his commanding officer was wounded, Blake took over and in the next few weeks assumed command and organised the crossing by 45 Commando of the rivers Maas, Rhine, Weser, Aller and Elbe “with bullets pinging off the metal hulls of the small river crossing boats”.  

            On demobilisation in February 1946, Blake helped found the Royal Marines Association which supports past and present marines and their families.   In 1948 Alfred re-joined Blake Lapthorn, the Portsmouth law firm which had been founded by his grandfather in 1869, and he practised there until retirement, becoming senior partner in 1985 and a consultant until 1999.

            Blake’s great-grandfather, grandfather and father had served on Portsmouth council and he too was elected as councillor and later alderman. His interest was  education and services for young people, and he was chairman of the education committee and Lord Mayor in 1958-59.   As Lord Mayor he raised funds for radiotherapy equipment for local hospitals and took the salute at the granting of the freedom of the city to the Royal Marines.

            Blake was also a lay canon of Portsmouth cathedral, permitting him to quip when he failed to get re-elected to a key council committee that “the canon has been fired”. 

            He was a director for many years and then life vice-president of Portsmouth Football Club. In 1991 he was also appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of the county of Hampshire. In 2003 Portsmouth he was made a freeman of the city, adding his name to a short list of previous recipients who included Sir Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Montgomery, Earl Mountbatten and Princess Diana.

            Blake was a Rotarian for over 60 years, president of the Portsmouth Youth Activities Committee, patron of the Elizabeth Foundation for  profoundly deaf pre-school children, patron of the Portsmouth Family Welfare Association, vice-president of the YMCA in Portsmouth, and governor of a number of schools.

            In recent years Blake retired to Port Royal in South Carolina. He married first, in 1940, Beatrice ‘Trix’ Nellthorp who died in 1967 and second, in 1969, Alison Kelsey Dick of Boston, Massachusetts who survives him with two sons of the first marriage.

LtCol Sir Alfred Blake KCVO MC LLB DL Royal Marines, born October 6 1915, died November 17 2013