How does one go about harvesting this history - is there some sort of national project? I'd feel pretty daft setting up my video camera in the corner of the room and it certainly wouldn't be in keeping with what John would feel comfortable with, thats for sure. I tell my children to listen carefully to him and even now, the poignancy of his occasional thoughts strikes home. The story of his childhood mate, Donald, and how he simply dissapeared and is probably little more than a fading family footnote. But he was a person in his own right, just like us.. and as vibrant and as optoimistic and as aspirational as we all are. Its so terribly sad. I wonder how we would handle things today if our current losses ran into the hundreds of thousands.
You talk about the turret - John did exactly the same thing and he got himself in there with little difficulty apparantly, although he found the main spar a little difficult. What was nice was that someone contacted him afterwards to ask him if he'd like some shots that someone took on the day of him onboard and chatting upfront. We had the RBL around recently, and one of the forms asked what decorations had been awarded. John didn't even feel comfortable telling them about the DFM which he feels he probably earned for just 'sitting down'.