His name was Archie Wilson and he was indeed a bit of a character. I took the C-in-C, Admiral Sir Michael Le Fanu (who was a wonderful chap) plus FOME and their two ladies up there to stay for the weekend. I have some photographs somewhere of Archie's residence. He asked me if I could post some mail for him when I got back to Aden. One piece had to go by registered post (it apparently contained his son's school fees for the coming year). Of course, I was happy to do this.
He asked me how many men I had on my crew? I told him five whereupon he summoned his major-domo and told him to fetch five crabs! I thought this was definitely eccentric but kept my peace. He duly came back with a cool box and Archie asked me to send it back to him with Richard Willey who was due to pick up his guests on the Monday morning.
I gave the cool box to that most wonderful of all Loadmasters, Tony Hughes, to look after. Shortly after take-off, Tony came upstairs and asked me if I had actually seen the crabs. Every single one was the size of a huge dinner plate and would have fed an army. Archie wasn't as eccentric as I thought!
Happy Days.