Lieutenant-Colonel A.N.W. Kidston
1st Battalion, Middlesex Regiment (MG)

He was a regular Officer, very forceful in character and appearance with a large black moustache, an expert in the .303 Vickers Medium Machine Gun, our weapon. He was an excellent commander, a good disciplinarian but always fair … No one was stronger or more vigorous than Major K.

(Major H.G. Wells, BBC WW2 People’s War, 28 Jul 2003)

Born on 17 July 1913 in Toxteth, Lancashire, Antony Noel Wallace Kidston was commissioned into the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in 1933. At RMC, Sandhurst, he had graduated with the King’s Medal and Sword, awarded to the officer cadet with the highest military, academic and practical studies, as well as the prize for modern history.

He was attached to the Small Arms Schools as assistant instructor from 1937 to 1941. By early 1944, he assigned to the 8th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, the machine gun unit for the 43rd Scottish Division. He served as commander of “A” Company when the battalion deployed to France in June 1944.

Company second-in-command, Major Henry Giffard Wells, recalled of Major Kidston:

He was fond, but not overfond, of a ‘wee dram’. I can see him now at early morning (7 am) Officers’ Physical Training playing the medicine ball game on a tennis court where the object was to roll the ball behind the opposition’s service line … After a few months in France he was sent to be an Instructor at the Small Arms School at Netheravon, a post which must have suited him admirably. In France he used to like to have his slit trench connected to mine and, to keep up his spirits and drown the noise of the shelling at night, he used to sing Highland songs none familiar to me.

Wells described one incident near Caen at the end of June: “Major Kidston and I were dug in as usual with our trenches joined at the foot. He was singing Highland songs to keep his spirits up and then we heard the noise of a Tank coming directly towards us. Pitch dark—revving engine of tank—then silence—revving engine again this time closer—silence—revving again and closer still – staring into the darkness we could not see a thing – was it friend or foe? Our luck was in—a voice shouted, ‘Where the hell are we?’ to which we were able to reply.”

Following instructional duties, he returned to North West Europe. On 19 February 1945, he took command of the 1st Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, machine gun unit for the 15th Scottish Division. His predecessor, Lieutenant-Colonel J.P. Hall, had been killed ten days earlier.

Kidston died on 10 October 1965 in Portsmouth.