I met Alec flying a J/R in 1976-ish, he brought it up to Blackpool for maintenance. As I recall his employer was a truck company on the East Lancs road (?). Can't for the life of me recall the name, but remember seeing one of the trucks say 2 months ago and the (old) brain made the connection.
And delighted to hear Mike is still around, we had some good times around the mid 90s, myself at Manns, him at Veritair. Yes he did indeed retire and it's be VERY good to see him at some point. Thanks for the memory jogging! - VFR