Lady on a train
Sir: Colonel Fred Burnaby (Letters, 31 October 1992), my great-great-uncle, was never forward with a lady on a train and certainly never resigned from his regiment — indeed if Mr Webb had checked his facts before writing, he might have noted a pho- tograph of Colonel Burnaby with his fellow officers in the Blues taken at Regents Park Barracks in 1882, just two years before his death at the Battle of Abu Klea.
He might also have noticed that in the same year the Prince of Wales wrote to him on the subject of his regiment going on for- eign service to Egypt and desired to say that, 'holding the position of Colonel-in- Chief of the regiment under your com- mand, he would be glad to have a list of those officers Colonel Burnaby was propos- ing to nominate for Egypt'.
He might further have noted that at the time of Colonel Burnaby's death at the bat- `There! I knew it. You're not an exhibit at all.' tle of Abu Klea in 1885, he was command- ing the rear face of the square, which included a detachment of his own regiment.
It seems almost certain to me that Mr Webb should have referred to Colonel Burnaby's old friend, Colonel Valentine Baker of the 10th Hussars, who, it was alleged, tried to assault a certain Miss Dick- inson on 17 June 1875 on the train from Midhurst to London. On 2 August 1875, Colonel Baker resigned from the army as the London Gazette put it, 'Her Majesty having no further use for his services'.
Alan Tritton
Lyons Hall, Great Leighs, Chelmsford, Essex
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