Brig John Gray was born in 1927 and educated in England. He was in the British Army for thirty-three years, on loan service with Indian, Malay, Gurkha, Arab and African soldiers in addition to the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, his British Regiment. He fought in the Malayan anti-terrorist campaign for five years in the 1950s with the Malay Regiment and also in the Borneo campaign against Indonesian insurgents, with the Brigade of Gurkhas. He formed from scratch the First Infantry Regiment of the Abu Dhabi Defence Force and also the British Army training team in Malawi. A graduate of the British Army Staff College, John held many staff appointments including assistant chief of staff in Northern Ireland for over two years in the mid-1970s where he was responsible for the logistic support and personnel matters of twenty-two thousand soldiers operating from over one hundred bases. His final army appointment was in the Ministry of Defence, where for three years he provided a military consultancy service to friendly countries that asked for British assistance. This included designing the defence forces of Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho, reviewing the forces of Barbados, Belize and Bermuda and also advising many governments on defence matters, including Kuwait, Iran, Grenada, Ghana, Kenya and Malaysia. Taking early retirement as a brigadier in 1980, he set up a business in southern Africa, living in Swaziland and Botswana moving to South Africa in 1993, living in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Kwa Zulu Natal where he is now based. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and has business interests in Botswana, Swaziland and Singapore. He is married to his second wife with a daughter born in October 1999 and has a son, a daughter and five grandchildren from his first marriage. Although 83 years old, he is very fit and his main recreational activities are reading, wine tasting and golf.
