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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MJB" data-source="post: 2845532" data-attributes="member: 88928">I had 35 years in the RAF, aircraft engineer. Of course being interested in birds was shared with an interest in aviation - I remember reading my first copies of Flying Review and Air Pictorial just after the time my Grandpa had died. He had taken me long walks into the country and describe nature in detail - insects, birds, plants - all naturally expected from a foreman carpenter in a foundry, because one of the great strengths of Scottish society at that time was the literate and articulate working class - I still have a few of his letters, and boy, could he write, despite having left school at 13. His friends grouped together to buy all the newspapers between them and they were avid library-goers. He could tell me of the first aeroplanes seen in our county, and also could point out the damage in our town from lone Dornier raiders machine-gunning the streets before they flew back to Norway.Didn't everyone have a Grandpa like that? My father had been aircrew in WWII, and so it was inevitable that I became interested in aircraft.MJB</blockquote>