On July 26 our presentation was by club member and past President Jim Cox.

Jim gave us a delightful and illuminating talk on his life story from origins in SE London to postings at numerous RAF stations, flying a very wide range of aircraft.

Surprisingly for someone who spent so much of his career flying jet aircraft, Jim started off on the Arts side attending Rochester College of Art and achieving a Diploma in Design and Lithography at college in Bournemouth leading to teaching Art in Dorset.

Being called up for National Service changed everything. Jim found himself in the RAF and after initial training and officer training, started to fly at RAF Desford on a Chipmunk trainer. After gaining his wings Jim moved onto jet aircraft, piloting the first British jet fighter, the Meteor.

One of Jim’s favourites was the Canberra, a jet powered medium bomber on which he subsequently became an instructor. This was followed by flying nearly all the post war UK jets such as the Vampire, Hunter, Lightning, Victor and Vulcan. His experience also extended to jet airliners like the BAC1-11, Comet, Britannia and Trident as well as mammoth transport planes the Beverley and Argosy. Jim commented that flying the Beverley was like flying a block of flats from a lavatory window!

For many years Jim was based at Pershore and met his wife in Evesham.

Jim is a member of the Mach 1 Club and when asked by a member what it was like going through the sound barrier answered that inside the plane you do not notice anything at all!

We meet at 10am every Thursday at The Boathouse, Evesham Rowing Club. Our speaker on August 2 will be Rose Hewlett with a talk entitled "A Village through Time" and on August 9 Angela Hugman with “Tales of the Unexpected”. Full details can be found on our website www.eveshamprobus.co.uk

BOB TURNER