At 12, Townsend passed the entrance exam for Haileybury, a private school for boys where his father and brother Philip were educated. When Peter was five, the family moved to another Devonshire village, Northam, then to “bourgeois” Bournemouth in Dorset.įrom the age of eight, he was sent to a nearby boarding school, Wychwood, where he discovered a passion for cricket and the Bible. She returned to Burma and he was cared for by his aunt Edith until his parents came back to Britain after his father retired in 1917. Peter was just a few months old when his mother brought him back to the family home in Whitchurch, Devon.
His father was a senior representative of the Crown in what was then part of the British Empire, one of a handful of Britons ruling 15 million Burmese. Peter Townsend was born on 22 November 1914 in Rangoon, Burma, the fifth of seven children in the family of Lieutenant Colonel Edward Townsend and his wife Gladys. Peter Townsend caught on camera in Brussels Townsend had long been a supporter of the Legion and served on the committee of the local branch. In his new surroundings, it helped that he could count on the support of the tight-knit British community, with the Brussels branch of the British Legion, at its heart. What is far less well-known is that exiled Townsend would discover the true love of his life in Belgium, as well as a thirst for new adventures. Townsend was given his marching orders and packed off to Brussels by the old guard, fearful that a marriage between the Queen’s fun-loving sister and the dashing divorcee would damage a monarchy still recovering from Edward VIII’s abdication for the “scheming” American Wallis Simpson. The Royal crisis made Townsend a household name in the 1950s – and thanks to the global success of Netflix series The Crown, his story has captured the imagination of a new generation today.Īlmost everyone knows what happened next. Group Captain Peter Townsend was the Battle of Britain ace who should have married Princess Margaret, only for an out-of-touch political and religious establishment to shoot down their romance. Ejected by Palace, Battle of Britain ace fell on his feet in Brussels
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