DD
Only just been given this thread by an old friend.. so sorry to hear the news. David gave me my first job on leaving the raf and I'm sure he hated giving a job to a "crab" however my sister was best mates at school with his first wife Alison and together they very kindly put me up until I found some digs... shades of listening to Pachebal's Canon every night after returning from the pub (i think it was the only tape he had) and then raiding the freezer for grub.
At Trent I was the "nice" instructor and he was the "hard man" and it worked really well until I wanted to get "Andy R" solo in some amazing record time of about 5 hours in the bell 47 - so i passed him on to DD for the check before solo - sadly it was a strong wind day and Andy didn't do much of a clearing turn to look behind before he set off. Both he and I got a huge bollocking for not ensuring adherance to sop's.. (he still sent him solo..!)
Years later flying the 737 lgw/edi one day someone heard my name on the pa and came up to talk to me (in the days you could!) it was john, DD's brother who gave me all his sad news then - saw him a couple of times with John and met his gorgeous little daughters (can't believe they are now having children themselves..) but then we have hardly kept in touch, and recently I have wanted to and not known how to... so give him my very best from "charlie P" and pls contact me asap or I will send you a pm.
Charles Pemberton