Early Life
Born at the Old Rectory, Little Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, the youngest of four children (elder siblings were Anne, Michael and Christopher). His paternal grandfather had been Governor of the Bank of England between 1909 and 1911. The World War II airborne division commander Frederick 'Boy' Browning was his first cousin. On 27 August 1922, his father, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Evelyn Johnston, DSO, MC, who managed the family coffee business, drowned at Widemouth Sands near Bude, Cornwall at the age of 44. In 1924, his mother subsequently married one of her husband's military colleagues, Captain Marcus Scully, who became his stepfather. The marriage subsequently ended in divorce and thereafter she reverted to her original married name.
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