LIEUTENANT COLONEL N J RIDOUT AGC (RMP)

Lt Col Nick Ridout was born in 1956 and went to Haberdashers’ Aske’s School, Elstree.  After briefly working in the insurance business, he joined the Army and went to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1976, passing out as a Royal Military Police officer in 1977.  Tours as a junior officer included the RMP Mounted Troop in Aldershot, a platoon commander with the 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment in Belize, and Northern Ireland at HQ 39 Brigade and 1 RMP.  He later served in Germany at Werl, Berlin and Sennelager before returning to the Province as SO3 G4 at HQ 8 Inf Bde from 1987 – 89.  His command tour back at 110 Pro Coy RMP, Sennelager from 1989 – 91 included Op GRANBY (the First Gulf War), during which he commanded the 1 (UK) Armd Div RMP unit, 203 Pro Coy RMP.

After qualifying as a Russian Interpreter at the Defence School of Languages Beaconsfield, he joined the Joint Arms Control Implementation Group at RAF Scampton in 1993.  His 3½ year tour there included a 6 month detachment to Georgia as a member of the OSCE mission, participation in the early Dayton Accord arms control inspections in Bosnia and too many trips to little-known corners of Eastern Europe to mention.  In 1996 he was posted to HQ Allied Command Europe Mobile Force (Land) in Heidelberg as Force Provost Marshal.  Over the next 3½ years he exercised in Norway, Canada, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Spain, Hungary, the UK, Greece and Turkey and deployed to Albania for 4½ months on Op SPOONER in 1999 during the Kosovo Crisis. From June 2000 – December 2001, he was second-in-command of 6 RMP in Northern Ireland before being posted at short notice to take up the newly created appointment of Defence Attaché Tashkent.  He left Tashkent in December 2005 in order to prepare for his new appointment as Defence Attaché to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Lt Col Ridout’s interests include field sports and cooking (ideally in combination), reading, riding and travel to outlandish places, including holidays at various times in Siberia, Mongolia and Lapland.  He married Cathy, then a regular Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps officer, in 1981.  She has since also been an Ulster Defence Regiment Part Time officer and is now a Territorial Army QARANC officer as CO 306 Field Hospital.  They have no children but 2 dogs, which are a lot less trouble and cheaper too.

He assumed his new appointment in September 2006. Cathy divides her time equally between a home life in Tbilisi and fulfilling her TA commitments in UK.