Unfortunately we lost my grandfather, Rueben Eric Saul, on Friday, aged 87.
The family gathered and went through some things over the weekend. We discovered letters of reference for his attempts to enter the RAAF, which was knocked back on medical grounds. One of which was a letter from his instructor at the Newcastle aero club (kempsey branch) giving him a great commendation for his flying skills.
We talked about the times he frightened my family members by turning off the cockpit lights during a night flight. How my cousin tried to get out of the aircraft when poppy pointed out Nan's house below. His sister told us as a young boy he once flew a tiger moth over the farm performing stunts, and his mother, who never swore, was heard to remark "that mad bastard will kill himself!".
Outside of flying he was a mechanic for 50 years running his own business, a tireless man with a work ethic to a fault. He was married to his wife for over 50 years until we lost her in 2003. The love and warmth of his family over the weekend is testament to the good job he did raising his 6 kids and how those values have been passed down to his 17 grand kids and 21 great grand kids.
He was a wonderful man with a love of aviation many of us can identify with.