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Do you know Alan

I’ve been spending a pleasant hour or two reading all the articles in your excellent web site.

I was born in March 1943 in Reading Road South (opposite what became the filling station), although our home at the time was 23 Clarence Road, a bungalow built in 1936 behind which was our Grandad’s blacksmiths ‘shop’. He was Ernest Light, who had two sons and three daughters, and he was England’s champion farrier in 1923. Vera married Len Cane, whose family had a colonial store on the corner right opposite the Oatsheaf, commonly known as ‘Cane’s Corner’. Effie (Euphemia) did not marry but upon leaving school went to work for the Crookshank family at Windmill House, somewhere north of Fleet Road. Maj Gen Sir Sydney Crookshank had been aide-de-camp to Earl Haig (I guess during the Boer War), shared the same date of birth as King George V, and the house was full of memorabilia relevant to those connections. The well outside the back door had mounted over it the bell of the first ship to sail through the Suez Canal.

Dorothy married an aspiring RAMC lieutenant, Richard ‘Dick’, our Dad, and I can recall his odd weekend visits to Fleet from Woolwich where he was based (and where they nearly set up home – blimey, we’d have bin Londoners!). We’d always listen to Much Binding in the Marsh before he left to go back up ‘smoke’. If the electricity stopped we’d shove another shilling in the meter. The house we had moved to in Kings Road was rented from Goddards the builders. We didn’t have a phone or a fridge, and the ‘bog’ was outside next to the coalshed. Grandad had bought the family’s first b/w TV in 1952 for the funeral of King George VI. Things improved when Dad came out of the Army and we moved to Westover Road. Fleet Pond was our playground – a very happy time. I played cricket for Elvetham and Fleet II and foootball for Crookham Ramblers

Brother Richard and I both went to Farnborough Grammar, where on Fridays we dressed up as soldiers in the CCF (Combined Cadet Force). Dad saw to it that we brassoed our buttons and blankoed our belts and gaiters properly, but we still got ‘done’ on occasions for wearing non-regulation socks! Our ‘baby’ sister Susan went to work for The Aldershot & District Traction Company and later married. Sue lives in Ilmington, Warks. Richard did well with the General Accident and Norwich Union (but succumbed of leukemia all too soon after an early retirement in 1998), whereas I went to the FUDC in 1959 as a clerk in the Engineers & Surveyor’s department (Jackie Chivers was the E & S, followed by Tom Hough). My boss was Bill Rider, who eventually emigrated to Brisbane.

By then we had moved to Weldon Close near Crookham Crossroads. Through a buddy at FUDC I met Christa, a German nurse who was au-pair for a family of stockbrokers. Unable to support two thirsty mouths on our regular pub crawls, I had to get a job earning more dough, and a friend arranged for an interview with British Eagle at Heathrow Airport which company I joined in 1964. Christa had moved back to Frankfurt, and I applied for jobs there with various firms, one of which was interested, so I used cheap company tickets to attend an interview which proved successful, and to effect the move.  That US company, Jeppesen, a provider of aeronautical charts and data for airlines and pilots celebrated its 50^th anniversary in Germany this year (2007) and I have been with them for 42. We started exhibiting at the Farnborough Air Show in 1976, and my last official visit there for the company was in 1996. I used to fly from Blackbushe with the Fleet vet Holland ‘Holly’ Birkett in his Auster, but he sadly died on a flight in France in 1963, a flight he had invited me on. I still correspond with Ginny Birkett, who was Carnival Queen runner-up in the mid-60’s.

I remarried and we have a son of 20, David, and daughter Selina, 14. Selina’s horse keeps us busy (and me destitute!), but of course, it’s in the blood, and I love it. I bowl (10 pin) and my average is 178 (not bad for an old’un!).

I’m in Friends Reunited, but  have not been a good correspondent (it will improve, Ian and Mel, I promise). My email is atb1943@onlinehome.de and I’d love to hear from old friends.

Kindest regards,

Alan Lathan