Family’s 90-year link with the RAF

Kyt · Sep 5, 2008

Familyâ€™s 90-year link with the RAF (From This Is Lancashire)

A BURY family’s fascinating link to the Royal Air Force has been put down in writing for posterity to coincide with the service’s 90th anniversary.

For the Garvey’s RAF history also embraces a period stretching back nine decades and three generations. Now, the family’s proud association has been chronicled by Bury woman Kate Garvey, whose husband Kim is an RAF Wing Commander based in Mons, Belgium.

Kate decided that the 90th anniversary of the RAF was an ideal opportunity for her to explore and research the Garvey’s link to the RAF. Now, her completed story has been published in the Mons’ base newspaper.

For her husband followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather in joining the RAF to keep alive a proud family tradition. In her introduction, highlighting the RAF’s 90th anniversary, Kate stated: “I thought it would be interesting to look at the development of the RAF from its inception to the present day through the service history of three generations of one family — that of my husband’s.”

The long-established link was begun by Herbert Monks, born in Bury in 1895. He joined the then Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in November 1914 as an airman fitter at the age of 19.

According to Kate: “He was posted to France in August 1915 with 11 Squadron. In January 1916, he qualified as an observer, only to go on to qualify as a sergeant pilot in May of that year, career progression being somewhat swifter in those days. In August 1916, he returned to the UK to join 3 Reserve Squadron in Shoreham, West Sussex, as an instructor pilot.”

On October 29 1916, Herbert was awarded the Military Medal for gallantry in the air during his time in France. Very little is known as to the actual circumstances of the award. Kate said: “He was a quiet, understated man who did not discuss his wartime experiences and, sadly, many records from the First World War have now been lost. When he gave his medals to his grandson, he claimed to have been given the Military Medal for cleaning toilets.”

April of 1918 saw Herbert being newly commissioned a Second Lieutenant on 123 Squadron at Duxford, Cambridgeshire. That July, he was promoted again — to Lieutenant in the RAF technical branch. He had now gone full circle and back to engineering which was his pre-war occupation. Herbert’s records show that he was not actually transferred from the RFC to the RAF until November of 1918.

The next link in the family’s 90-year association with the RAF was established by Arthur Garvey who married Herbert’s daughter, Betty. Arthur was a partner in the well-known Bury plumbing firm, Garveys, before his death 27 years ago.

In 1958, Herbert’s soon to be son-in-law elected to spend his National Service with the ‘Brylcreem Boys’ and jetted off to Cyprus for three years. His daughter-in-law Kate said: “Far from opting for a routine time there, he joined the Middle East RAF Mountain Rescue Team. I do not think we have a single photograph of his time in Cyprus with him in uniform.

“He spent his time training for, and participating in, rescue and crash site clearances in Cyprus, Turkey and Iran. He also found time to tag rare Eleonoras falcons on the southern coast of Cyprus to the south of Akrotiri and lead an expedition to the bottom of the deepest pot holes in the Kyrenia mountains.”

In 1981 Herbert’s grandson, Kim Garvey, became the third generation of the family to join the RAF. And, like his father before him, he enjoyed the lure of the mountains.

Wife Kate recalled: “During our three years in Cyprus, he followed many of his father’s climbs, sometimes even taking our daughter with him. However, he drew the line at tagging falcons and potholing.”

During the second Gulf War, Kim was attached to the Combined Air Operations Centre in Saudi Arabia. On a trip to Iraq in 2003, he spent time in and around Baghdad. Little did he know he was following in his grandfather’s footsteps, albeit 85 years later. It was this trip that allowed Kim to solve a puzzle. Family legend had it that a prized photograph of his grandfather and fellow officers had been taken in India where it was believed Herbert had served after the war.

But as Kate explained: “It wasn’t until my husband’s return from the second Gulf War that we discovered the photograph was actually taken in Baghdad. We believe that the photograph was taken in the officers’ mess in the Baghdad Air Park.”

That picture and the accompanying text forms an integral part of her detailed, comprehensive and well-written history.

She concluded: “When I asked my husband for an idea to end with, his only suggestion was that of a rousing chorus of ‘March of the Royal Air Force’. I suppose if he was born an American marine, hooray! would suffice.

“However, Herbert Monks was born in Bury, Lancashire, in 1895 and I can imagine that his would be a far more low key response to 90 years of the RAF: a slight nod of the head as he quietly refilled his pipe would speak the volumes that none other could or should readily speak.”
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Family’s 90-year link with the RAF

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