Barksdale Boy, thanks for that (I should really get him on here shouldn't I? haha). He mentioned that particular competition and as you can imagine he is still a little sore about the final outcome. He went AEO for that crew when theirs went sick, the crew came last in the Nav competition but were redeemed when Dad won the Comms trophy. The crew won a trip to Perth , Western Australia, and took THEIR OWN AEO, not him. I think the phrase he used about he and his crew was 'spitting blood'. Nice to know that gratitude and honour were seen there. Without him they'd have sunk. But hey-ho. Maybe a measure of guilt has been felt ever since, we can but hope. Don't worry, by the way, he's still as nuts on Rugby as he ever was but obviously the achievements of the Welsh teams have not lived up to those heady days. It's more fun in his household now as my stepmother is Scottish and also very into Rugby. Makes for some very intense moments during certain matches, lol.
Another name he has mentioned is Hugh Prior, Martin Wither's AEO, who will have endured six weeks of Dad banging on about the various instruments, lol.
I will attempt to get him to register and join in the conversations so there can be a number of re-acquaintances made. He's having a few computer nightmares at the moment as someone 'fixed' his computer and, despite wanting to remain with XP, the person put a dodgy copy of Windows 7 on and it's knackered his home tower. The laptop he's using is not great. I'm taking him shopping for a new one in September.
By that way, I think I may have mentioned earlier, September 4th is an open day at East Midlands Aeropark and and has said he'd like to go as the Nimrod R1 will be sitting pretty there by then. XM575 is the pride of the park there. How long we'll be there I don't know (5 year olds are notoriously difficult to pin down and mine is no exception but ALWAYS has to be there) but if anyone else fancies going then it might be a nice meet. If anyone has any 575 stories. memories, pictures then I know the Aeropark will be over the moon to know anything. I bought the Haynes book about the Vulcan and one of the first pictures has 575 in anti-flash white and they were ecstatic.