THE Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire, Sir , who retires as the Queen's representative in Wiltshire next week after almost nine years, was the guest of honour at an official reception given by Devizes Town Council on Thursday.

He was presented with a Letter Under Seal in gratitude of his service to the town, by the Mayor Margaret Taylor.

Sir Maurice and his wife, Lady Belinda, will stand down as Lord Lieutenant and consort on Sir Maurice's 75th birthday on Wednesday.

Sir Maurice was set on being a soldier for as far back as he can remember. He was born in Bangalore, India, in 1929, where his father was a serving officer in the Army.

He lived on the sub-continent until the age of five, when his boyish larks led his parents to send him to live with his grandparents in Devon.

He was not to see his parents again for seven years. As a 12-year-old schoolboy, he endured two very long sea voyages to and from India during the Second World War, seeing other ships in the convoy torpedoed by German U-boats.

After leaving Wellington School in 1946, he joined the Army in Salisbury and received basic training at Le Marchant Barracks in Devizes before spending six months at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, where he won the King's Medal, the highest award for a cadet officer.

He joined the Royal Artillery but was offered a commission in the Royal Horse Artillery and after seeing service in Germany and Egypt, he was invited to join the Queen's Bays.

After further service in Germany, Northern Ireland and Borneo, he was appointed commander of his regiment. For five years he was Honorary Colonel of the Royal Horse Artillery.

He was military assistant to Field Marshall Sir Geoffrey Baker and Lord Carver.

He instructed at the Army Staff College and the Royal College of Defence Studies.

In 1984 Sir Maurice finally left the Army and took up appointments as chief executive of a firm of merchant bankers, managing director of a security firm and chairman of the company that recycled the refuse collected in Birmingham.

He said: "The well-trained soldier can turn his hand to anything.

"You just rely on the experts for the detail, but the rest is man-management and common sense."

Sir Maurice puts his appointment as Lord Lieutenant down to a misunderstanding over the telephone.

While he was Brigadier on the staff at Army HQ in Wilton, he was called by the late Lord Loch, who asked him if he was busy.

Thinking he meant at that particular moment, Sir Maurice said no and found himself organising the first Wiltshire County Show at Spye Park, near Bromham in 1979.

It raised £33,000 in a day for the Children's Society, an enormous sum of money for the time.

He became High Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1992-93 and Lord Lieutenant in 1996.

During his time in office he has had to organise at least six to eight royal visits a year.

As the Queen's representative he fits in an average of nine engagements a week.

He has acted as host to the Queen three times and all the other members of the Royal Family at least once over that period.

Sir Maurice will undertake his last official engagement this evening when he will install the new Lord Lieutenant's Cadets.

Farmer will take up post

THE new Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire is farmer and former county National Farmers' Union chairman John Bush.

Marlborough-born Mr Bush, 65, will take office at the end of month.

He was educated at Monkton Combe School and Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in philosophy, politics and economics.

He has farmed 600 acres at Heywood, between Trowbridge and Westbury, since 1962, and was county chairman of the NFU in 1978.

He was a member of the council of the Royal Agricultural Society of England between 1980 and 1992 and has been a governor of Lackham College since 1985. He is a member of the county committee of the Country Landowners' Association.

He is also chairman of WMF Limited, the agricultural supply and marketing company, owned by farmers and based at Melksham, and previously known as West of England Farmers.

He chairs the Environment Agency's committee responsible for flood defences in the Bristol Avon catchment.

He was appointed a magistrate on the Westbury bench in 1980 and became chairman in 1989. When the five West Wiltshire benches were combined in 1991, he served as chairman of the new West Wiltshire bench until 1995. He is a magistrate member of the Wiltshire and Swindon Police Authority.