Not a lot to say really. I was born in December 1941 at Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. When I was 8 months old my father, who was a flight engineer on No.120 Squadron was killed when his aircraft ditched into the Atlantic. I left school in 1956 and went into engineering, a trade I stayed with all my working life. In the early eighties I started to research the loss of my father and traced three of the survivors of the crash. I now have a very detailed account of what happened on the day. During my research I was in contact with the present day 120 Sqn historical officer and in 1985 the squadron held its first reunion at RAF Kinloss to which I was invited I stayed in the Officers Mess during the three day event and was very well looked after. In 2003 I once again attended the 120 Sqn reunion but this time stayed in the Sergeants Mess, seems I was demoted. During these reunions I was given a tour of one of the squadrons Nimrod MR2-P aircraft, no photographs allowed. Also in the eighties I decided to try to get a bit fitter and took up long distance running. I ran about 40 half marathons and at the age of 46 in 1987 I ran the London marathon, did it again the following year, must have been mad. I retired in 1999 and now work just two days a week as a driver for a charity. Peter.
Not much to tell about me. I was born in Sydney in July 1940. My parents devorced when I was 2 and was sent to be raised by an aunt. I was an average pupil at school and left at 14 to get a job and a flat. I have been married twice and have 3 children by my 1st marriage. I have had many various jobs so to many to list. My last job was as the National Distribution Manager for a leading cosmetic firm (17 years) before being retrenched along with other managers world wide. I was a very bad golfer and an average lawn bowler before becomming an invalid. It was a smoking related illness that has now put me on oxygen for 18 hours a day. I became interested in WW2 when I started researching my family history and found my relations who had served and were killed in the war. I joined the CMF for a period in the 60's and was in the transport unit. I had lots of fun learning how to drive the left handed studs left over from the war. :behindsofa:
Here, I think John is referring to Studebaker trucks as opposed to what he typed (I would refer to myself since I'm left-handed but I'm not left over from the war!).
Yes Andy, they were studebakers as you say, I should have written that. We always called them "studs" being short for studebaker. :amen:
LOL, no worries John, I knew what you were on about but it could be read another way so was worth a chuckle.
Andy, I must be getting old. What you said went straight over my head, until I just re-read my post again. Good one mate, thats one I owe you now :boink: :lalala:
Will post tomorrow when I have a bit more time to commit to the grand amount of dribble that is my life to date.
It's certainly not warranted, WH. Anyway... I was born in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia in October 1976. At the time, my parents were living and working in Laverton several hours to the north on a nickel mine. I was only a few days old when Mum and I flew back to Laverton so perhaps the interest in aviation was set early. We moved to Melbourne a couple of years later and my sister was born in 1979. You'll see we moved around a fair bit as my Dad was a geologist with Western Mining Corporation. We arrived in Bendigo, a couple of hours north of Melbourne, a lived in this historic mining town for several years. We had a great house, 1920s, two-storey set on about half an acre with a big vegie garden and a few fruit trees. Great for playing cricket and footy in. Here, Dad taught me to bat (right-handed even though I'm left-handed). He reckoned I copied the players on TV but at the time I was following the West Indies and most of them were left-handed! Speaking of TV, since Dad's English we would often enjoy the old war films and were allowed to stay up to watch them. The likes of Sink the Bismarck, The Dambusters etc really made a mark on me. At the same time, Dad and I started to build models, the most memorable of which was a 1/350 scale Bismarck (which still survives - paint job still incomplete, a bit battered from many moves - on top of one of my bookshelves). I can also remember building a Harrier GR3 and A4 Skyhawk while in Bendigo. In 1985 or thereabouts, we moved to Perth, Western Australia and I began to rack up an impressive list of schools as we moved and I changed years. In the next 4-5 years, I went to six different schools. Dad and I kept building models and I started making my own attempts in that respect. It was while in South Perth (where we eventually settled) that I borrowed a book on the Battle of Britain from the school library. I was hooked and I still don't know how or why! After 18 months in Perth, we moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, as Dad was transferred to run an exploration project. It was a shock to the system to leave Australia as a 10 year old but, as my parents rightly predicted, a huge adventure was ahead of us. We spent the first 10 weeks living on the top floor of the Shilo Inn in downtown SLC. We finally settled in a house in the foothills looking out over the city. With the Rockies and Wasatch mountains all around us and the salt lake in the distance, it really was an experience. I did particularly well at school (never managed to replicate those levels!) - last year of elementary and first of junior high - and enjoyed proper white Christmases. Each year, the company would pay for us to return to Australia for a holiday. Dad always arranged it so we flew through England to visit our grandparents. It was on our first trip back that I had several pound to spend (rather than change it) so I bought a copy of Flypast magazine. Again, another seminal moment in my interests in old aviation. I had already been building 1/48 Monogram models (only WWII aircraft but the occasional ship too) but was under the belief that there were but two or three Spitfires left in the world (as opposed to the 200+!). My next birthday brought a subscription to Flypast from Mum and Dad and I remained a subscriber for more than 10 years. America was, understandably, great. Hill AFB Museum was just up the road in Ogden with their B-17, B-29 and C-47 along with various Cold War jets and transports. I bought my first "bio" book at their gift shop - a little paperback about one of the first B-29s called Hagarty's Hag by Mel Blanscett which I still have. We travelled extensively around the western half of the US and when it came time to leave in '89, we drove east, spent a month in Denver (Dad's work) and then continued to Chibougamau (sp?) in Quebec where we lived for six weeks while Dad worked at a company mine and we tried to learn French-Canadian. Dad and I did a bit of fishing there too but the locals were very secretive about their favourite spots so we only ever succeeded in catching a couple of pike. The journey home was via England again and we visited RAF Hendon where I saw many of my first RAF aircraft from the war. Back in Perth, I did the final term of Year 8 and settled into high school which I graduated from in '93 while still enjoying building model aircraft but also getting into the modern US Navy. Many USN ships visited the port of Fremantle so I made a habit of photographing and touring them. Notable ships included touring USS Missouri and being on board four carriers, some twice. I also started writing to ships in service, sending a couple of postcards and asking if they had any memorabilia to spare. A bit cheeky, yes, but the results ranged from no reply to envelopes containing 10x8 photos, many signed, to stickers and booklets and the like. The interest in the USN took hold for most of uni (while still reading Flypast and keeping in touch with old aviation) where I studied Accounting and Business Law. I'm still not entirely sure why I studied it but I added the second major of Business Law as I didn't think I'd handle just plain accounting! I had a couple of hiccups in the second year but then treated uni like a job so I'd do set hours and attend classes. Whenever I wasn't in class, I was in the library studying. I had grand plans to attend the Wanaka airshow or even Oshkosh in the US but never made it due to lack of money. While at uni, I worked as a night club cleaner on the weekends and holidays. Good money and very physical but you see things you really don't want to see - people really can be animals when you add alcohol etc! Still, my first day on the job, I found a $50 note and continued to find $2 coins regularly. We were supposed to hand them in for pizza at the end of the day but, hey, I was a student and... While still at high school and uni, I did buy several Squadron Signal books and would often contact advertisers in Flypast when they had big sales so the collection was growing very slowly. I also spent much of 1991 volunteering at the RAAF Museum's libary. Anyway, graduating from uni, by now I was working as a busboy at the casino, I had to wait till the start of 1998 to begin my job as an accountant in Bunbury. When I finally did move down there, I had officially moved out of home (at 21) and settled in a unit 200 metres from the back beach. Bunbury is a nice place but unless you're born and bred there, it's a bit hard to break into socially. I didn't excel at work but I put my head down and got on okay. After a couple of years, I moved further out of town (20 minutes' drive) and rented a friend's house in a little beachside settlement. It was while in Bunbury, that I got back into WWII aviation...and discovered Amazon. Books started being acquired but I bought equal amounts of USAAF and RAF-based titles...some of which I still haven't read. In '99, I saved enough money and, an indication of my revitalised interest, went to the UK for six weeks to stay with a friend (eventually my best man) I had been writing and emailing to. We did aviation museums - I saw my first Spitfire flying display at Old Warden - and, heaven of heavens, Duxford during Flying Legends. To finally see these machines I had been reading about for a decade was another seminal moment in the interest. I returned home and conacted a local restorer to see if he was interested in some slave labour. There followed a friendship that continues to this day...and a lot of paint-stripping, sand-blasting and beer drinking! With Lyn, I flew in a Tiger for the first time and worked on Tigers, Stearman, Cessnas, Austers and Winjeels. This work led me to do aviation-related holidays to Victoria and Queensland in the next two years to work on the Liberator and Beaufort respectively. 2002 saw me moving south to Manjimup - a promotion of sorts. A small community, I initially enjoyed the place becoming very involved in various organisations, most notably the fire brigade where I made great friends. However, the gossip around town soon got to me, as did the job which I had hated for six months before deciding to quit, so I made the decision to drive trucks on the mines. While in Manji, I had gotten into the old truck world but still continued to add to the book collection from Amazon. I owned two trucks when I changed jobs but sold one immediately. I first worked at a mineral sands mine two hours north of Perth but we kept getting shut down whenever it rained. I decided to get into real mining and started with Placer Dome at Granny Smith Gold Mine in April 2004. The mine was just south of Laverton where my parents were working when I was born so I had come full circle. I was heavily into old trucks so kept to myself but was feeling a lot better with life and work etc. This attitude must have shown on the outside as well as after becoming an old hand after being there for six months, I found myself talking to one of the female engineers during a band night. We hit it off, started dating and were engaged two months later on Chistmas Eve 2004! This, of course, was Jodi who many of you know by reputation! One of the few people to actually "get" me, we decided to settle in Perth after buying a house and realising we wanted to be home every night rather than working for (in my case) two weeks at a time. Jodi worked as a consultant and I got a job as a researcher in mining recruitment. The jobs weren't fantastic but they allowed us to sort the house out and enjoy ourselves. We married in Santorini (an attempt not to have a huge wedding - 26 people still showed up!) and honeymooned in mainland Greece, Turkey, Ireland, Wales and England (all done on points!). Jodi travelled to South America and Burma for work and I eventually ended up going on a trip to South Africa for an expo. Nothing else was terribly exciting about our jobs so when Jodi finally cracked it with hers and found something in Melbourne, we decided to move there roughly eight years before we thought we would! I managed to get a transfer and we moved over in May 2008 and finally settled in our current place of 4.3 acres and a big shed! With the world recession hitting mining heavily, I was retrenched about three weeks ago and have been looking for a job ever since. I studied a Grad Dip of Journalism in 2006 and have been doing bits and pieces of writing ever since so am hoping to get something along those lines. We keep busy at home with our myriad of animals and family commitments. I have no idea how my interest in WWII was re-invigorated. It's always been there and has a profound effect on me particularly at memorial services. I guess about three years ago, with some savings behind me, I started rapidly adding to my collection focussing on Commonwealth bios, memoirs and the personal side of the air war. In doing so, I have found some kindred spirits whom I now regard as good friends. I have grand plans to write articles and or book/s based on interviews I have done but am also considering some fiction based on my knowledge and research. We'll see. Sorry, rather long, you've probably timed-out by now but it might explain a few things about me and how I see the world! LOL.
