Lt Col Sir Andrew Ogilvy-Wedderburn obituary: officer and bobsleigh Olympian

Times

7 hours ago

Even for a Highland regiment officer, Sir Andrew Ogilvy-Wedderburn's marksmanship, athleticism and intrepidity stood out. In 1979, when there were still more than 50 infantry battalions in the British Army, he led the Black Watch's winning sniper team at the National Rifle Association's Imperial Meeting, held annually at the Bisley Ranges in Surrey, the most prestigious shooting competition in the world.
In the winter months he was an energetic bobsleigh competitor, traversing the Alps in an old Bedford van and staying in modest inns to keep the costs down. As part of the army's four-man team, in 1976 he won the British Bobsleigh Championship and went on to represent Great Britain in the Winter Olympics at Innsbruck that year, and then again in 1980 at Lake Placid, New York. More than once he returned to barracks in plaster from neck to pelvis.
As 'brakeman' — a misleading term, the brake being applied only after crossing the finish line — his job was to give the sledge the necessary momentum, pushing at the start for 50 yards or so before jumping in. Speed being everything at that stage, for which many a top track-sprinter was enticed from athletics, Ogilvy-Wedderburn's height, powerful thighs and enormous strength put him in the top league.
Andrew John Alexander Ogilvy-Wedderburn, 7th baronet, of Balindean in the County of Perth — abbreviated with military inevitability to 'Og Wedd' — was born in Fareham, Hampshire, in 1952, the youngest of four and the only son. His father, Sir John, was a serving Royal Navy officer, and Og Wedd was brought up initially at naval bases in Malta and on the Firth of Clyde before moving to the ancient family home in Perthshire in 1960. He was subsequently educated at Gordonstoun in northeast Scotland, of which the future King Charles, a contemporary, said: 'I'm glad I went to Gordonstoun. It wasn't the toughness of the place — that's all much exaggerated by report — it was the general character of the education there … with the emphasis on self-reliance to develop a rounded human being.'
From Gordonstoun, he went to Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot, where men were trained for short-service commissions in five and a half months. In 1971 he was commissioned into the Black Watch, his local (Perthshire) regiment, odd perhaps for a man whose Jacobite forebears had been deprived of title and estate (and in one case life). The baronetcy was restored in 1809 for Sir David Wedderburn, the Tory politician; Og Wedd succeeded to the title on the death of his father in 1977.
After joining the 1st Battalion (1BW) he did several emergency tours of duty in Northern Ireland, converted to a regular commission and became adjutant, ever a demanding appointment. After two years as the commanding officer's right-hand man he was posted to the Royal Marines commando training centre at Lympstone in Devon, where he completed the 13-week commando course and gained the celebrated green beret. Two years later he reverted to the equally celebrated red hackle of the Black Watch's tam o' shanter to serve with 8th Infantry Brigade headquarters in Londonderry.
He returned to 1BW in 1986, by now in Berlin, as a company commander and the following year commanded the British contingent of the Tripartite Guard of Honour for President Reagan's visit, in which the leader of the free world famously stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate and said: 'Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!'
Promotion to lieutenant colonel and command of 1BW in Hong Kong followed. An ebullient, natural leader, he led a notably happy battalion, his style both canny and relaxed. On one occasion, his 'jocks', interpreting their orders to the letter, managed to contrive an incident that might have been out of George MacDonald Fraser's The General Danced at Dawn. While on exercise in the New Territories, they had been told to be on guard against infiltration from across the border and to detain anyone without good reason to be in the area. A group of executives from Jardine Matheson, the great British Hong Kong multinational conglomerate, happened to be enjoying a day's team-building exercise. When stopped and questioned and — although demonstrably not ethnic Chinese — found wanting in good reason, they were blindfolded and handcuffed. At first thinking it was part of the team-building exercise, their sense of humour began to fail on being marched at bayonet point for three miles in some heat and then put in a detention cage. When Ogilvy-Wedderburn arrived to sort things out, tempers were frayed, but with a shrewd display of firmness and charm he disarmed them, almost convincing them that he was doing them a favour by releasing them.
The battalion returned to England in 1994 and the following year served another six-month tour of duty in Northern Ireland, for which Ogilvy-Wedderburn received the Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service. Not overly ambitious, after two years instructing at the Combined Arms Training Centre on Salisbury Plain, he chose to become commander of recruiting in Scotland, and in turn Scottish divisional lieutenant colonel, responsible for personnel matters in the Scottish infantry regiments. On retiring in 2004 he became a director of the Army Benevolent Fund Scotland.
Latterly, though his health declined, he spent his time at home in Perthshire enhancing the flora and fauna, ridding the estate of grey squirrels to save the reds. In 1984 he had married Gillian Adderley, daughter of a decorated Royal Army Service Corps officer. The marriage was dissolved in 2014, and he married, secondly, Fiona (Fi) Beaton, a naturopathic nutritionist, who survives him along with a daughter and two sons from his first marriage: Katherine, a ski-chalet manager; Peter, a wine merchant, who succeeds to the baronetcy; and Peter's twin, Geordie, an insurance broker.
He was the last of the army's Olympic gentleman amateurs.
Lieutenant Colonel Sir Andrew Ogilvy-Wedderburn Bt, Black Watch officer and Olympian, was born on August 4, 1952. He died of cancer on April 9, 2025, aged 72