i. Biography
The Essentials Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force, Montgomery Collins was British, and the postwar posting that matters here was Germany. In the years after war, when service and station often rearranged a life, his route ran from military duty into a country guesthouse in the Northern Black Forest, with a name that kept a trace of memory attached to the place. In the Northern Black Forest, he opened a country guesthouse called Zum wilden Affen, translated as The Wild Monkey, in honour of Max. The move set a different register from ranks, postings, and uniforms: slower, earthier, and tied to place. For Montgomery Collins, the guesthouse was not just accommodation but a deliberate naming act, one that linked the work to the life already lived. That link runs through the Berlin posting and the guesthouse name that followed from it. The shape of the story is continuity rather than break: service carried forward into another setting, with experience retold through place. Berlin sits behind the Black Forest chapter as a decisive reference point, while Zum wilden Affen, translated as The Wild Monkey, and the line “in honour of Max” give the whole enterprise its note of remembrance.
Signature
Montgomery's signature wines include Monkey 47 and Max the Monkey–Schwarzwald Dry Gin. In that small list, the naming holds the line back to the guesthouse: Monkey 47 and Max the Monkey–Schwarzwald Dry Gin sit in the same world as Zum wilden Affen, carrying the story forward in bottled form. The thread is consistent: Royal Air Force service, Berlin, the Northern Black Forest, and names that keep memory attached to the work.
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