Personality Profile
leading to the roof – and were fashioned from staff quarters. It is many, many years since any Lord Warden lived in the main castle during summer residencies. Lord and Lady Boyce made good use of the summer retreat, although the days were packed with appointments, engagements and public appearances. Today, there are photographs of her
smiling face and the pair as a devoted couple on tables and mantels throughout the rooms. She had taken the time to immerse herself in local life, not least the Deal Civic Society, which is credited with preventing the demolition of the distinctive seafront façade and ancient Middle Street in less enlightened times. Today, aged 75 and youthfully trim, Lord Boyce doesn’t “come down here to be in a castle” (usually twice a month) from April through to October.
There are some legal duties to perform but for the most part the role is ceremonial and takes him around most of the 14 Cinque Ports that exist today.
Michael Cecil Boyce was born in 1943
in South Africa,– where his father Hugh had moved to work on a farm, but left at a young age. Hugh had joined the Royal Navy and eventually rose through the ranks to commander level.
He was able to educate his three sons privately, something his eldest son atributes to
all three of them becoming successful. (Hugh died aged 94 but lived long enough to see him become the highest-ranking serviceman in the land and the honour of being Lord Warden. His mother Madeline, who died 15 years ago, saw much of his meteoric rise, although not his present accolade.) The young Michael joined the Royal Navy in 1961 and within four years he was sub-lieutenant, a commander by 1976. Clearly clever, able and ambitious, he was posted to various higher ranking Naval directorates in the 1980s until his almost inevitable promotion to vice-Admiral in 1994 and a knighthood in 1995. There followed the roles of First Sea Lord, Chief of Naval Staff, full Admiral and Chief of the Defence Staff. The latter brought him into contact with politicians of many stripes – enough, one suspects, to deter him from any contemplation of a political career. Life today is simpler. Evidently able to fill his days with Lord Warden and charitable duties, he has a great passion for sport. Once a fine hurdler and left-winger at rugby, he still plays tennis and squash. He spends what time he can with his four beloved grandchildren, sometimes at his seaside home. “I don’t bother with the gym or anything like that. Walking to the bus stop or the tube station is the exercise I do when I am in London,” he smiles.
Besides these simple joys, while in Kent, he likes to hop on his bicycle – perhaps into Deal which he says “continues to get better and better”.
“There’s nothing quite like getting on the bike and stopping off at the fish and chip place in Walmer overlooking the green and the bandstand for some food and watching the world go by.”
Mid Kent Living 9
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