DECEMBER 10th 2025

Sometime last Autumn, I made a decision to reconnect with some 'old' workmates from a job I had retired out of almost forty years previously.  There were twelve: gathered in the sumptuous Wynn's Playwright Restaurant in Dublin's Abbey Street. The pictures were taken by Dan, youngest of the group, who managed to keep himself out of the mirrors. 

Some of these worthies trained me back in 1964, the 'oldest' being born before the start of The Emergency and all but the child entering the world as I did before the D-Day landings. 

One had been a mentor in my early days as a union rep and another had been a constant companion who chased folk music with me across the 60s and back again.

Another sat the same qualifying exams as myself in 1968. (Pass mark 70% four subjects at Degree level.) In written exams we expected to average 81% across the board.

Among my papers back in East Anglia I had a hand-written list of 30 lads who joined the service with me in 1964/5,  I had wondered how they had fared in eighty orbits of the sun and indeed wondered how many orbits they had achieved. 

It was for this reason I came to Dublin on 10thDecember 2024 to Wynn's

The visit led to my joining Whats-App groups and an e-mail lists, swapping mobile numbers, all of which placed me in position to establish contact with others scattered retirably around the four corners of John Bull's other island.

I was cheered by the fact that, among the twelve, were four from that list.  Better still was to find I was heartily welcomed and well remembered.

Three I am delighted to report are in these pictures and in rude good health and I am the fourth. 

Having returned to Blighty I reviewed my list and set about building contacts from among 30 twenty-year-olds including myself who had filtered into the service between April and December of 1964. 

Looking back, it is obvious that that the twelve became the nucleus of a team that would work the service and expand it into Europe. One departed early to engage with the minutiae of aviation in Brussels.

Others I shared wine with in Wynn's graduated to become training instructors; some became specialists in simulation, some developed safety systems. 

My co-mates from 1964/5 gave all their working lives to ensuring the safety of others flying in planes, so that no fatal mistake was ever made by our service.  I stayed 25years but all those shown worked on into the 21st century ensuring that millions of people flew safely through the skies of Europe and still do.

As for myself, I trained in Systems Analysis while there and later in Robotics and Electronics and took a very different trajectory to my old comrades but my life was in sailing and boats as reflected by the website that hosts this blog

My visit to Dublin counted as only my fourth visit in the 25yrs since I turned my back on John Bull's Other Island to start a new life in England sailing old ships, training young sailors and writing articles for boaty magazines when and if the editors would pay me for it. 

My last visit had been in 2022 for a wedding, the previous one in 2017 to show my adopted son the way to Galway and before that was a funeral in 2008.