Gaydon Incident 1963
This thread is getting further away from Gaydon and I,d like to bring it back if I may? Firstly I,d like to thank PPRuNe for enabling me to have a conversation with a good friend who I havn,t seen for 45 years . I don,t know much from computers and my son logged me on to PPRuNe and chose my age as 32 , and the daft name of "Janot Lapin" . I was told in Brittany that this was Bugs Bunny,s name in France? Janot is pronounced Janno , and NOT Janet! And I am actually 65.
I am also grateful to the chap at Karup who started the thread. As John Moore [Patricia Forrest,s husband] said , "There is no such thing as bad publicity. And many more Christmas cards will have been sold , and the charity benefitted due to this thread .
Sam Weller has told me that he saw the fox hunting incident . The pans were in a four leafed clover layout and he was looking at the hunt from the same angle as me , but further away . He said he,d assumed somebody took a photograph of it . Not so .
I decided to commission the painting after attempts to contact old comrades had drawn a blank . I joined "Friends Reunited" , but the only person listed there , somebody I,d worked with every day for two years , didn,t remember me . The idea of the painting , and the Christmas cards , was that people would like them , buy them , send them to old mates and finally I would get in touch with somebody who actually remembered me! And so it has turned out.
Chiefy Swinburne ordered one of the prints , Group Captain Everitt [ex Station Commander] phoned me up one day to chew the fat . I complained that as I was not allowed to have a camera on the squadron , I had no photos of my time at Gaydon . Group Captain Everitt posted me his personal photo albums and I had some of the photos copied , which are now framed and hung on the wall .
I have been asked by e mail which Victor it was . On this my memory disagrees with Chiefy Swinburne , I say XA 926 , but he says it was his aeroplane , XA 941 . I,ve had another e mail saying that there should have been a ground generator parked next to the Victor . True there was , but I couldnt find a photo of one to send to the artist . I contacted I.W.M. Duxford to ask if they had a photo , or a generator in the collection [it was a massive piece of kit with a Rolls Royce engine] Anyway , I got no answer from Duxford so decided that as it was a narrative painting , and done from a memory 45 years old , it didn,t matter that much .
I have been asked how the scene was conveyed to the artist . She asked me to sketch what I wanted . To say I have no artistic talent is putting it mildly , I just couldn,t do it .
So , getting a large piece of white card [snow] I bent up the back edge and one side edge . Then drew trees on the left and a fence on the back . A "Corgi" Victor B2 would have to do for the aircraft [which was actually a B1] and Chiefy Swinburne and I were little china figures , cheap Spanish souvenirs , belonging to my wife . The hunt were portrayed by donkeys , also ex Spain . I photographed the scene and posted it to Pat Forrest . When she had stopped laughing she started work on the painting , and all things considered I think she did a good job .
To conclude , I have had several e mails concerning incidents involving Artie Shaw , security at the base , and one about "Bluey" , the drinking buddy of the "Artificial Horizon leveling set" diminutive Scots storeman .
The people concerned do not want these stories to appear on PPRuNe and I can only comply with their wishes .
That,s about it from me , and a Happy New Year to all PPRuNers , all who contacted the thread , and anyone who bought cards and prints .
Ex S.A.C. John [Shingles] McVey.