Last Post – Brigadier (Retd) Alastair John McDougall Clark

Brigadier (Retd) Alastair John McDougall Clark died suddenly at home on the 5th March. A service and reception will be held at St Thomas’s Church, Salisbury, SP1 1BA at 2pm on Tuesday 9th April.  He is survived, and loved, by Margaret, Stephen and Alex. Family flowers only please, and donations if wished directly to the RA Charitable Fund.

Brigadier (Retd) Alastair Clark joined the Royal Artillery in 1958, spending his first four years in Hong Kong (32 Med Regt RA and 34 Lt AD Regt RA), where he met Margaret, and in Aden. Time in the UK and Germany (and Paris) saw him qualifying as a Russian interpreter and spending much of the latter half of the 1960’s working in Cheltenham and Cyprus, the latter at 9 Signals Regiment.  After time in the AMF (UK, Norway) and passing ASC 5/111 he was posted as the Army Ops Officer, BRIXMIS , 1972-74, a role he was proud of. In 1974 he became BC of 176 (Abu Klea) Med Bty RA, (39 Med Regt RA), in Sennelager and Lurgan. After a Staff role at HQ Arty Div he returned to Sennelager as CO 39 Fd Regt RA, where he was glad to be in post for the regiment to gain the Freedom of the City of Paderborn in 1980. During the 80’s he served in Woolwich (GSO 1 RA1 HQDRA) and Dortmund (Dep Comd Arty Div). He spent the second half of the 1980s in Larkhill, as CI Gunnery at the RSA, and then, as Brigadier, as the Commandant RSA. He chose the latter in lieu of the Military Attache post in Moscow for which both he and Margaret were well into training for. In 1993 he retired from the Army, leaving the posts of Comd RA Trg Bde and Regimental Brigadier. Living in both Pimlico and Salisbury he worked for 10 years in the Black Rod’s Department, House of Lords, and was honoured to have run the Ops Room for the Queen Mother’s Lying in State in 2002. Moving to Salisbury proper, he was the Chairman of the Salisbury Civic Society until 2013, and he maintained his interest in the City until his death, as he did his role of Chairman of the House of Lords Retired Staff Association.