Talk:Lt A D Wintle MC

I won't edit the article itself because I have a policy of not being the tourist who buggers up what he came to enjoy, but this might be of interest:

Wintle did not lose a leg though he did lose a kneecap, some fingers, and an eye.

He didn't actually try to shoot that official (who was technically an officer but really a civilian twit in uniform) although he did threaten him with a loaded revolver and thus commit "conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline" (or something like that, I don't know the precise form of these words but you probably do). Soon after, he somehow signed his own charge sheet, which contained the words "certain of His Majesty's ministers ought to be shot", and was imprisoned in the Tower of London where he was shunned at first but then treated as a hero when other frustrated officers found out what he had done. The charge sheet is reproduced in his book "The Last Englishman".

Wintle spoke French like a Frenchman. This meant that he did not hate the French as ignorant people do, he knew how to hate the French properly.

Some time after the war, he took on a dodgy solicitor in court and lost heavily in the probate court and the court of appeal. He publicised the case by assaulting the solicitor, meaning he forced him to pose for a photograph without his trousers. In the end, being skint, he was unable to afford more lawyers so he fought the last appeal himself in the House of Lords. He became the first non-lawyer in history to get a unanimous verdict in his favour.

More here, of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wintle

Tode 17:31, 16 January 2009 (UTC)