The adjutant
That's uncannily similar to my own experience .... apart from the bit about working with 56 in Cyprus, sadly. Even our ages are the same!
As a boy, the three books I read over and over again while waiting for the paint on my airfix models to dry were Wind in the Wires, Wing Leader (Johnny Johnson) and Nine Lives (Al Deere). I counted the days until I was 14 yrs 3 months and could join the ATC ... with whom I remain active to this day! Sagittarius rising does get reprinted from time to time, so I have a fairly new copy to reduce the wear on my well fingered original (It probably helped that Cecil Lewis lived to a very grand old age)