RAF photos
The Legion home have asked us if we have photos of Father in uniform for their Remembrance Sunday display. We have a large number of photos, but not that many with my father in them. I've loaded the best of them to Flickr and now I have to sort out printing some decent large-sized copies. They should all come out reasonable quality at A5, but my mother's HP printer has thrown a wobbly, is jamming paper, won't let me replace the cover I removed to clear the jam and before that was printing everything with a green tinge anyway. :(
My own Canon photo quality printer is too old (2008?) for my new laptop (Windows 8.1) to recognise and it won't read the driver CD/software. My old laptop won't fire up at all as the power connection is defunct, so my last hope is firing up my old XP PC which is configured to see the Canon. Fingers crossed.
(I'd be tempted to just pop down to PC world and buy a new £50 job but one car is with the garage, while the other is only firing on 2 cylinders and I really dislike the idea of bungie-ing a brand new printer to the back of the bike. However, if this doesn't fly, I will probably be walking/cycling there tomorrow and walking back.)
However, for those interested, photos
An early photo - Father is 2nd from left, he can't be any more than 18 or 19 here and was, as I understand it, tasked with training Navy personnel in photography for the Fleet Air Arm.
Far right. Going by the fact that he's got corporal's stripes, I'm guessing he's around 22, though he looks much older. I'm pretty sure when he went back in in 1950 (after a couple of years out) it was at his substantive rank of sergeant. This must be the next chronologically as he's a corporal here, but although older I'm guessing he's still only around 22. I'm guessing this is a photographic section leader's course of some type.
Back row, second from right. Although he looks younger here, he does have sergeant's stripes so it's probably 1943 or later. Hmmm, I'm not actually certain if it's 2 or 3 stripes there. From the variety of ranks it looks like a station photographic section.
Centre. This is a photo marked Nairobi and we know he went out in 1943 and came back after the advance through Italy, so some time in 1944(?). Again part of a station section, though note the RN officer who I assume is in charge ... hmmm, without knowing the rank, of course, I can't be sure.
And this is classic father. I suspect I've already shown this one, but labelled Nairobi again, so he's 23 - 24 years old here. And this was a party piece. The 'tankard' is a ground off 'winchester' bottle used for storing chemicals so I'm guessing the 2 quart/2.2 litre capacity. The party trick was being able to hold and drink from it one-handed when full.
If I can figure out the printing then I'll also have a go at editing/cropping to focus on Father, but I need to get prints down to the home tomorrow or Thursday at the latest.
My own Canon photo quality printer is too old (2008?) for my new laptop (Windows 8.1) to recognise and it won't read the driver CD/software. My old laptop won't fire up at all as the power connection is defunct, so my last hope is firing up my old XP PC which is configured to see the Canon. Fingers crossed.
(I'd be tempted to just pop down to PC world and buy a new £50 job but one car is with the garage, while the other is only firing on 2 cylinders and I really dislike the idea of bungie-ing a brand new printer to the back of the bike. However, if this doesn't fly, I will probably be walking/cycling there tomorrow and walking back.)
However, for those interested, photos
An early photo - Father is 2nd from left, he can't be any more than 18 or 19 here and was, as I understand it, tasked with training Navy personnel in photography for the Fleet Air Arm.
Far right. Going by the fact that he's got corporal's stripes, I'm guessing he's around 22, though he looks much older. I'm pretty sure when he went back in in 1950 (after a couple of years out) it was at his substantive rank of sergeant. This must be the next chronologically as he's a corporal here, but although older I'm guessing he's still only around 22. I'm guessing this is a photographic section leader's course of some type.
Back row, second from right. Although he looks younger here, he does have sergeant's stripes so it's probably 1943 or later. Hmmm, I'm not actually certain if it's 2 or 3 stripes there. From the variety of ranks it looks like a station photographic section.
Centre. This is a photo marked Nairobi and we know he went out in 1943 and came back after the advance through Italy, so some time in 1944(?). Again part of a station section, though note the RN officer who I assume is in charge ... hmmm, without knowing the rank, of course, I can't be sure.
And this is classic father. I suspect I've already shown this one, but labelled Nairobi again, so he's 23 - 24 years old here. And this was a party piece. The 'tankard' is a ground off 'winchester' bottle used for storing chemicals so I'm guessing the 2 quart/2.2 litre capacity. The party trick was being able to hold and drink from it one-handed when full.
If I can figure out the printing then I'll also have a go at editing/cropping to focus on Father, but I need to get prints down to the home tomorrow or Thursday at the latest.