New museum to honour Will's hero grandfather

William Ramsay with the statue of his grandfather, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay in the grounds of Bughtrig House. Photo: Phil Wilkinson.

The intrepid naval tactician masterminded the Dunkirk evacuation and helped organise the D-Day Landings, so it’s apt that Tuesday, June 6, the 79th anniversary of the landings, was chosen to launch a new museum dedicated in his honour.

The museum has been created by the admiral’s grandson, Will Ramsey, at Bughtrig House, near Coldstream, his former home.

Will, 54, said he wanted to educate people about his grandfather’s wartime exploits.

Winston Churchill and Bertram Ramsay look at a map of Channel defenses in 1940.

Will was an army officer for five years from 1991 before founding the Affordable Art Fair, which puts on 14 events a year across the world for 250,000 visitors.

He and his wife Natasha inherited Bughtrig and a portrait of the admiral hangs in the living room.

Will said: “My wife Natasha and I decided to open a small Admiral Ramsay Museum in a building in the garden of the house he had hoped to retire to, in the Scottish Borders. Sadly, that wasn’t to be. He died aged 61 on active service in a plane crash in January 1945.

“There is plenty of information about his career online on Wikipedia and other sites, but I thought it would be useful to add a family perspective. He was merely the figurehead for events which saw extreme bravery by many who served under him.”

Admiral Ramsay bought the 18th-century mansion close to the English border shortly before the Second World War began.

He was knighted for his part in the Dunkirk evacuation, a campaign which Winston Churchill descrbed as a “miracle of deliverance.”

Will added: “One evening, a week before D-Day, my grandfather and his driver pulled over to the side of a road on a promontory overlooking Portsmouth, where they could see convoys passing and the ships loading in the distance.

“He looked on pensively for what seemed a long while, then remarked: ‘It is a tragic situation that this is a scene set for terrible human sacrifice, but if out of it comes peace and happiness, who would have it otherwise?’ ”

The museum was officially opened by Commander R.H. Hawkins, MBE, Royal Navy, Colonel Hugo Clark, British Army and Wing Commander H.M.A. Cummins, DL, Royal Air Force.