Author: Barry Mellish

Roger was at Haberdasher Aske’s school in Hatcham from 1949 to 1954. I had commenced two years before that so we did not have close association at School – rather like the Clease/Corbett sketch I looked down on them, I looked up to the Prefects.  Roger was not keen on school sports but otherwise was always a participator, a characteristic he carried into adult life. I recall he was active in school Clubs such as the Lit and Deb and the Natural History societies, there were probably others.

It was after leaving school that our paths came together, we were both members of the Old Askean Association Field Club. This club had only started a couple of years earlier, founded by Donald LeJeune and Dermot Poston. They remained our friends throughout their lives.

The Field Club had a variety of activities such as walking, pot-holing, theatre visits and dining. It thrived for a few years but then joined with the Old Askean Rambling Club which had a longer history, being founded in 1889. Roger walked with that Club for the rest of his life, he was Captain from 1989 until 2022 when ill health meant he had to stop.

He and Hazel were stalwarts of the Rambling Club keeping it active in lean times. I had very many walks with him, both locally and long-distance. The highlight is probably our walk from Coast to Coast.  We undertook Wainwright’s walk of around 200 miles from St Bees Head in Cumbria to Robin Hoods Bay in North Yorkshire.  On a stopover at a farm in Shap we were complimented as being the smartest dressed walkers that the host had seen!  We did it in 4 visits of 4 days.  He was a competent map reader, bolstered by his binoculars which he usually carried to identify birds and animals as well as routes. He was calm in a crisis which made him an excellent companion. Roger had a great interest and knowledge of nature, sharing such knowledge on many Rambles with the OARC.  If the route crossed a ploughed field then Roger was on watch, hoping to find a Roman remain.   After our weekend walks we regularly were treated to tea, coffee, biscuits or cake, all from the boot of Roger and Hazel’s car and served on a table. From around Year 2000 the Club had short breaks of 5 nights at a suitable hotel in a good walking region. In the early days over 30 members were present. Two walks a day were offered and Roger could be relied upon to do them all with appropriate local maps or books.  On the final night the other guests at dinner were treated to a hearty rendition of the School song, “The Sandbin,” Roger having previously sought permission from the Management.

Roger was a gentleman, he cared for those around him and was always ready to assist in any way he could.   He is remembered as sociable and generous in his hospitality. Around Christmas each year after a short walk the ramblers were invited by Roger and Hazel to return to their home “The Captain’s Cabin”.  Members were given a sumptuous cold platter and appropriate beverage.

Roger can be regarded as a model Old Askean. He was a Life Member of the OAA and President in 2005.  He was a member of the Committee a number of times and took responsibility as Social Secretary for many events, including the introduction of the RAF Club for the Annual Dinner. He was a traditionalist – he resisted the movement of the Annual Dinner away from Haberdashers Hall, and also the cessation of it being a “black tie” event. He was a true supporter and could be relied upon to attend the various events organised by the Old Askean Association.

I am grateful to have known him and will remember him as a good friend. He is sorely missed by me and many others. May he rest in peace.

Dennis Johnson

The following appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 10 November 2024.

Leslie Needham, who has died aged 102, was one of the last surviving members of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) set up by Churchill with a mission to “set Europe ablaze” by supporting resistance networks in occupied Europe. Needham served initially as a cipher operator based at the SOE headquarters in Algiers dealing with communications with the Italian Partigiani resistance to Mussolini and his German allies in Italy.

After the invasion of Italy, the SOE moved forward to Monopoli on the Adriatic, at the top of the “heel of the boot” and 30 miles south-east of Bari, providing a radio link with Tito’s Partisans who were fighting the Germans in Yugoslavia. The SOE team liaising with Tito was led by Fitzroy Maclean and included Churchill’s son Randolph. “I would regularly take messages between Churchill and Tito,” Needham recalled. “The messages were always very similar – Tito asking for supplies and Churchill replying that there were other fronts to consider.

“But one evening a curious-looking message came through which had only five words on it and said ‘for the Prime Minister’s eyes only’. It read: ‘Happy birthday Dad. Love Randolph’.” Once the war in Europe came to a close, Needham volunteered to remain with the SOE and go to the Far East where SOE was now fighting the Japanese. Within weeks, however, the atomic bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima and the war came to an end.

Leslie Needham was born in 1922 on New Year’s Day in the south London suburb of Honor Oak Park. His father Joseph was an antiquarian bookseller, but died in 1931, leaving his wife with three children and an income of only 25 shillings (£1.25) a week. She found work as a charlady for neighbours and took in washing and ironing. Leslie took a paper round and a Saturday job as a butcher’s boy to help his mother make ends meet.

He was educated at Crofton Park Central School and Haberdashers’ Aske’s in Hatcham, but left school at the age of 15 against his mother’s wishes to take a job in the Stock Exchange as a stockbroker’s ledger clerk.

When war broke out, he joined the Stock Exchange Cadet Company and in 1941 joined the Essex Regiment but after being medically downgraded for a foot complaint he transferred into the Royal Signals and was posted to North Africa where the British First Army, commanded by Lt-Gen Kenneth Anderson, was advancing on Tunis. The position they were to occupy, however, had recently been vacated by a Royal Artillery unit which had left discarded explosives lying around. Some of the explosives detonated, leaving Needham with very serious burns and wounds. His mother received the news that he had been severely wounded at the same time that she was informed that her older son, Eric, a fighter pilot, had been killed. “Several days later, I awoke in an American hospital,” recalled Needham. “A padre was praying by my side saying: ‘If this man be taken from us …’ I quickly assessed the position and decided I was not going anywhere.” It was while recuperating that he was recruited into SOE.

At the end of the war, Needham was offered a job with the Standard Bank by another Old Askean he had met playing rugby, and worked his way up to a senior position, managing the bank’s pension fund and meeting the bank’s directors. One of them, a merchant banker with Robert Fleming & Co, offered Needham a job with Flemings, managing two investment funds. Six years later, he took up a partnership at Pember & Boyle, a large gilt-edged broking company.

In 1977, Needham became a Freeman of the City of London and joined the newly created Company of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators. A keen sportsman, alongside rugby and tennis, he also played cricket for Standard Bank and golf, serving as captain, and subsequently for 13 years president, of Langley Park Golf Club. When he stopped playing rugby in the 1950s, he became a referee, with one of his fellow referees being Denis Thatcher.

In 2005 he attended a luncheon given by the then Queen at Buckingham Palace to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the war, and in 2020 a dinner given by Princess Anne at St James’s Palace to mark the 75th anniversary.

Leslie Needham married Vera Avery in 1949. She predeceased him, and he is survived by their son and daughter.

Leslie Needham, born January 1 1922, died September 28 2024