14 Platoon of the Sovereign’s Company
Johnny Thoyts was educated at Wellington College and Sandhurst. He enlisted in the 10th Battalion The Parachute Regiment direct from school in 1963, and qualified for his 'wings' before RMA Sandhurst (Marne 36) in January 1964. He was commissioned in December 1965 into the 10th Royal Hussars and spent four years commanding a troop of Saladin armoured cars in Münster, W Germany. In August 1968 he married Patricia (Paddy) Dolan and they had one son and one daughter. Their marriage was dissolved in 2001.
The Regiment amalgamated with the 11th Hussars in October 1969 to become The Royal Hussars (PWO) and he was sent as an Army careers lecturer to the West Midlands for two years, after which he was in charge of one of the armoured vehicle training wings at Catterick. In 1973 he spent another five years in Germany, first with the Regiment in Sennelager as a Chieftain Squadron 2IC, during which time the Squadron carried out the Guard Sqn role at The Maze Prison. On promotion to Major in 1976 he was sent as as an AQ Staff Officer to HQ 2nd Armoured Division in Lübbecke, where Gen Frank Kitson was the GOC.
On completing the Army Staff Course at Camberley in 1979 (where Gen Frank Kitson was the Comdt!), He spent two years as an instructor at the Junior Staff College in Warminster, followed by three years with the Regiment back in Germany in Fallingbostel commanding a Chieftain Squadron. During this time he designed and carried out the six month trial on the Army’s new Challenger tanks with his squadron.
He attended the Joint Service Defence College in Greenwich in 1985 and then spent just over a year running a small tri-Service briefing office for the Assistant Chief of Defence Intelligence Staff as a Lieutenant Colonel. This was followed by an appointment as the Commanding Officer of the Sultan of Oman's Armoured Regiment in 1987, and then a three year tour as the Army DS at the Royal Naval Staff College. Another one year job in the Ministry of Defence as a member of the Concepts Directorate writing 'what if?' Papers led to his promotion to Colonel.
In 1992 he attended the Italian Higher Defence College before becoming Defence and Military Attaché at the British Embassy in Rome in the local rank of Brigadier. Following this, he continued in the Diplomatic world when he joined the British Embassy in Bangkok in November 1997 as Defence Attaché.
Having reached the compulsory retirement age of 55, he left the Army at the end of December 2000 with the rank of Colonel. He stayed in Thailand and dealt with the liaison and fund raising for the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre (Death Railway Museum) in Kanchanaburi, which he was instrumental in setting up. He also served as the in-country representative for British Executive Service Overseas (BESO) dealing with SMEs in Thailand. He worked as a consultant for ASCENT Management Training Company and ran Leadership, Team Building and Presentation Skills programmes for them in a number of countries in SE Asia until he retired from ASCENT in 2013. He continues to live in retirement near Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat) in Thailand with his Thai wife. He has two grown-up children, six grandchildren and two great-grand children. His pastimes are golf and music.
May 2021