The sight of Roscoe’s Sherman tank following close behind with his faded red hat poking out of the turret was a considerable deterrent to any desire to linger. He must have made an enormous, unrivalled contribution to winning the war. His humour and imperturbability should never be allowed to conceal the remarkably tough, determined and inspiring character that laybehind them. After some particularly bloody battles around Caen, the breakthrough was achieved. With the help of the legendary American General Patton they defeated the Afrika Korps in Tunisia, earning Harvey another immediate DSO and two mentions in dispatches.Brought back to England, Harvey took over 29th Armoured Brigade in 11th Armoured Division and, as the spearhead of the follow-up troops, landed in France on 13 June 1944.

It is fair to say that at Knightsbridge – where with 30 inferior tanks he found himself engaged in a fierce battle with 160 formidable German Panzers – Harvey halted the German advance for long enough for the British army to retreat behind the Alamein line, thereby saving Egypt and the Mediterranean.By 6pm on the last day at Knightsbridge the regiment had fought until they had no shells left or tanks fit to fight. Harvey’s own tank was shot from under him and he walked about amidst all the shot and shell saying: “Don’t give one yard Please do not give one yard. Stay where you are and fight.” The position was saved and Harvey received an immediate DSO.Back in Cairo for a refit, he wrote to his friend the Jockey Club steward Sir Humphrey de Trafford, who rushed into White’s, brandishing the letter saying: “All is not lost! Here’s a senior officer in the Middle East who not only thinks that racing will start again, but also wants to be part of it as a Stipendary Steward.”Harvey was in the thick of the Battle of Alamein, promoted to brigadier, commanding the 4th Light Armoured Brigade. After fighting his way to Tripoli, where he held a race meeting with Arab ponies, he took over 8th Armoured Brigade and struck up a working partnership with General “Tiny” Freyberg, the New Zealand Division’s commander, First World War hero and VC.

Twice in the next six months, although hopelessly out-tanked and out-gunned, Harvey inspired the 10th and the other two members of the gallant 2nd Armoured Brigade by leading from the front with the “cavalry dash” which frequently terrified friend as well as foe.Although in both battles, at Saunnu and then at the Knightsbridge Box, Harvey lost nearly all his tanks, including inevitably his own, Rommel’s powerful thrusts were repelled. Promoted to lieutenant-colonel, Harvey first formed the 23rd Hussars and then, fulfilling his greatest ambition, commanded his own regiment, the 10th Hussars, arriving in the Western Desert at the end of November 1941. First as an adjutant, and then as a major commanding a squadron, he enjoyed not only the soldiering but played polo up to international standard, and became so good at pig-sticking that he was most unlucky to be defeated in the final of the Blue Riband of that sport, the Kadir Cup.Back in Britain Harvey was involved in the mechanisation of his squadron, although at the end of the first course he attended his report read: “This officer shows absolutely no aptitude for mechanisation whatsoever.” It was not long before he was recognised as an outstanding armoured leader.With Harvey as second in command, the regiment went to France soon after the start of the Second World War and, although hopelessly under-equipped, had suffered only comparatively light personnel casualties when they were evacuated back to England. Riding in races big and small including the Grand National, he remained too a dedicated soldier.During two years in Egypt he ran a successful racing stable organising some profitable coups “The six best years of my life” in India followed. Foxhunting, racing, and point- to-pointing, he was commissioned in 1920 into the 10th Royal Hussars, the great love of his life, then stationed at The Curragh.Once, forced to put up two pounds overweight in an Irish steeplechase, he was likened by a senior officer to Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, the obese silent film star, and the name stuck.After a distinguished spell at the Weedon Cavalry School, he was appointed Regimental Equitation Officer and, although he never had much time for show jumping, for a joke entered a troop horse at the Royal International Horse Show and won his way to the final jump-off for the world’s biggest prize, the King George V Gold Cup, at Olympia.One of the finest amateur riders in Britain, Harvey suffered his worst fall in the National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham when the glass of his broken spectacles had to be dug out from between his upper eyelids and his skull. Harvey was riding as soon as he could walk, and foxhunting throughout his youth.A devout Roman Catholic, he was educated at Downside and Sandhurst, and was an outstanding games player despite an inherited short-sightedness which meant his wearing thick spectacles. Railtrack took the absolute minimum of staff out of the old British Rail, leaving all its service functions to be privatised separately.

The intention was to make industrial relations easier to handle by splitting the behemoth of British Rail into many smaller and more manageable parts.When Railtrack was separated from BR, Mr Horton left 40,000 people in BR operations such as maintenance and track renewal which are essential to the company’s functioning.The result is that all the really big economies are to be found in the bits that Railtrack left behind, and especially the British Rail Infrastructure Services Companies, which at the end of the last financial year had 22,000 staff.These are the companies that employ the maintenance and construction workers who keep the track, bridges, tunnels and signalling in order.Not only have the BR businesses been splintered by dozens of management buyouts and takeovers by construction firms, but smaller sub-contractors are splitting it still further. Of his three DSOs, won during the Second World War, at least one should have been a VC. The 26-times champion jockey the late Sir Gordon Richards described Harvey as “the greatest man racing has known in my lifetime”.
And, in Cotswold retirement, the wittiest, most generous host, breeding and racing good steeplechasers in competition with his great friend and exact contemporary the Queen Mother, he will also be remembered as the man who once drove miles down a motorway in the wrong direction – and got away with it.He was born Charles Barnet Harvey in 1900, in Sarawak, and came to England a year later on the death of his father, who, with his friend the white raja Sir Charles Brooke, was with the wealthy Borneo Company. Roscoe Harvey was renowned as the finest armoured leader of the Second World War, and later controlled the discipline of the British Turf for 24 years. A superlative horseman, steeplechase rider, polo player, pig-sticker and a wonderful man to hounds, Harvey excelled as the complete cavalry commander, and was dubbed the Prince Rupert of modern warfare.