Chunky Lord

[Fareastdriver]

Way back in the fifties Chunky was a Vampire FG9 pilot at Sek Kong, an airfield in the middle of the New Territories in Hong Kong. After a bender in Kowloon he hailed a rickshaw and demanded to be transported to Sek Kong.
The rickshaw puller had never been out of Kowloon in his life so Chunky directed him on which way to go. After they had gone through the Lion Rock tunnel the rickshaw driver was knackered so Chunkey threw him into the rickshaw and motored it himself to Sek Kong, just in time for met briefing. The rickshaw driver was totally lost so they kept him on the squadron making tea and sweeping until a truck was going to Kai Tak. Thay loaded him and his rickshaw on the back and off he went back home. He was a fantastic character and having known him for so long there must be loads of stories about this reprobate. He is dead now, for some years, in tragic circumstances, but all who have known him must have outrageous recollections of his life.

[Load Toad]

Great story...but..

The Lion Rock Tunnel was opened on November 14, 1967, as a 1.43 km dual-one single bore tunnel.


So?

[Fareastdriver]

No wonder the rickshaw puller was knackered if the tunnel wasn't there.

[Taff Missed]

"Chunky is a damn fine chap", he used to tell me. I knew him when he was driving Series 3 Whirlwinds and 212s out of Dubai in the mid-70's. I have a picture of him sitting cross-legged on the floor of the reception area in the old Bustan Hotel, playing a chinese violin, very badly and completely out of his brain. Happy days.

He was right too, he was a damn fine chap.

Taff

[NutherA2]

Happy days. he was a damn fine chap.:ok:

In the mid-60s I had a couple of very memorable Chinese meals in the Kuching Market. They were memorable on three counts:

1. The food was excellent.
2. The food was amazingly inexpensive.
3. Most of us had no idea what we were eating, none of the “caterers” spoke English, so Chunky Lord took care of the ordering in what he alleged to be fluent Cantonese.

His Cantonese certainly seemed to gain more & more fluency as the pile of empty Anchor bottles got ever higher.:confused:

[lsh]

"Chunky" Lord lived in our village, Kilmington Devon.
He was a regular at the pub, one winter we were snowed-in and he turned up in antartic kit and mukluks!
I had just joined the RAF at the time and was on helicopters so it was all very interesting.
He had a good jungle story about firing his revolver out of the Whirlwind;
"I didnt mind them firing at ME but they were trying to hit one of Her Majestys
aircraft and that got me angry"!!
Some of the senior pilots remembered the smells of curry coming out of his Mess room too!
A truly engaging character, sadly missed.
lsh

[Fareastdriver]

Chunky's room was a legend. I went in there once when he had some hare-brained scheme of building his own autogiro. Scattered around the walls were bits scavenged from the dump, strips of alloy, a sycamore TRG, an Auster rudder assembly etc. Todays curry would be simmering away and another of his favourites, eternal Russian borshe soup that had been going for weeks, was beside it.
The Mess Secretary of the day was not impressed and on the day of the AOC's inspection decided to lumber Chunky. As the AOC went around the mess he led him to Chunky's room, opened the door and waved him in.
The place was immaculate! Chunky had somehow got wind of the plot and had dumped everything into somebody's garage. That evening it was back to its normal state.