Wakey, wakey...

Photo courtesy Kev Baxter

...wouldn't you rather be doing something else?

So read the headline of a double-page Sunday Times advertisement that I answered as a young photographer freelancing away in London.

I was feeling a little disturbed by the brutality and exploitation of the fashion and advertising industry of those years and so the advert spoke to me... and I told myself I needed a bigger challenge.

But apart from seeing the occasional jet flying overhead, I had no experience of the military and my 'apparently unsubstantiated motivation' was a big subject of the (3-day) interview that followed my response to the advert.  Somehow, I managed to talk my way into a job and subsequently spent many years flying RAF fast-jets - at one stage this particular jet, a Tornado F3,  was a regular in my log-book.

Anyway, I'm really indebted to my good mate Kev Baxter who sent this picture to me in his Xmas email. Sadly, the aircraft was on it's last flight towards the jet graveyard in the sky...

Of course, the memories and the comradeship, the craziness and the madly implausible stories of those days are now alive again for me. I'm smiling to myself as I write this post...

It's brilliant how photos can do that.  

Thanks, Kev!