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The Special Forces Club, for years a discreet Knightsbridge haven for SOE heroes of wartime resistance and intelligence folk, is fighting for its very survival.
Every member - there are 2,463 worldwide - has received a letter that must have caused a tremor in the stiffest upper lip. Under the club badge of a descending paratrooper, the club chairman paints an alarming picture of an organisation at war with itself.
Major 'Ram' Seeger, a former Royal Marine and member of the SBS, records losses both in money - the club is running a deficit - and in personnel, as old members die out faster than new ones can be recruited. The ranks are thinning. And there is dissension in those ranks, with members accusing club staff of theft and fraud.
The club's high command itself is at loggerheads. A move to attain charitable
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| The ranks are thinning as old members die out faster than new ones can be recruited |
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status has split club and committee down the middle. Ditto a move to allow postal voting. Mutinous voices have suggested that all the club needs is efficient management.
Major Ram takes that one on the chin. Like any good field commander, he puts his own safety last. But finally he does record, in tones of disbelief, that his election as chairman has been challenged as 'illegal'. He says tersely that he does not agree.
Grim news all round. Yet, as combat veterans know, it is always darkest before the dawn. New controls, new management structure, a business plan... all these are in the pipeline.
And Major Ram concludes his letter with good news for the troops. "The need for Special Forces is greater than ever," he writes, "and while other more conventional forces suffer cut-backs, they in contrast have a bright and more certain future."
What he means is, Britain is going to have more elite soldiers than ever. They will join the Special Forces Club. They will save it. 
FIRST POSTED MARCH 27, 2007
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