It is refreshing to hear so many people in the industry, some obviously of quite mature years, speak so enthusiastically about aviation and so warmly towards 'spotters' in this thread.
I am fairly mature myself, having been born towards the end of WWII, and have always had a general interest in aviation, though never been in the business. It is only in comparatively recent years, since my early retirement, that I have been able to indulge this interest more fully.
I am not a spotter in the sense that I collect a/c numbers. I just enjoy seeing aircraft fly, especially taking off and landing, and I am more interested in the capability of a type than with its number. I also enjoy the atmosphere of airports, large or small.
Although I don't collect numbers I do tend to remember aircraft that are named. Back in the 1980s, for example, Britannia called many of their B 737-200s after famous Britons, or at least famous people who had a connection with Britain and usually, though not always, with aviation - Jean Batten I believe was a New Zealander.
I also remember flying on Britannia's Sir Arthur Whitten Brown, The Hon CS Rolls, Ernest Shackleton, Florence Nightingale (and on a KLM MD 11 of the same name), Sir John Alcock, Sir Frederick Handley Page, Viscount Trenchard, Amy Johnson, Lord Brabazon of Tara, George Stephenson and Sir Thomas Sopwith. However, the most unusual name on a Britannia 732 that I travelled on was something like The O'Neil Hereditary Ruler of Ulster.