An Interesting And Emotional Visit To Raf Hendon

[Friar]

On Saturday Mrs Friar and I traveled over to RAF Hendon (a side to note to anyone thinking of going the post code/zip code from their website does NOT work with GPS/Sat Nav, they list a different one on their site, as I discovered too late but that is a different story)

 

The purpose of our visit was to attend a talk on RAF Genealogy, on what resources are available to those either already on this quest or about to start. This was followed by a trip behind the scenes to the reading room to have a look at some historical records.

 

This is something my wife would like to do to find out more about her Dad. All we have is a box of photographs that he took whist on service.  He thoughtfully wrote on the back where they were taken and a year, but that is all we have. We do not have his service number.

We took the pictures along to ask if there was anything in them that might help us get started.

 

A big point of the talk that came across to me was the importance for future generations of my family, or even future historians who should stumble upon me,  was to document MY life. If your looking to trace service personnel, chances are that if the did not die (dead people create paper work) or didn't fly a spitfire or charged across open ground on their own armed only with a sword, records will be VERY hard to track down.

 

Now I have not served in any arm of the services but my history will be important to someone in the future, I know nothing about my fathers service history and am also going to try to find something about him (he served in the Royal Navy) but if I do not write down my story now, my life, all be it a plain and simple one, will go unrecorded, my mark in history will be lost and reduced to born, married, died. Nothing of the detail will remain.

 

If you have older generations still alive, talk to them, interview them, find out what they did, even if it was simple, planes do not fly without being fixed, tanks do move without that little washer on the thingy, did your grandmother make that thingy?, troops cant fight without being fed. A line the chap giving the talk used which was given to him by a previous attendee who said we are "personalizing  history". 

 

I have nothing of my mother or fathers REAL history, I know a bit but would love to be able now to sit them down and talk about their past. I can not as they have both passed away over 20 years ago, it is only now as I get older than I have learned to appreciate the past, but now is too late.

 

Looking at her Dads photographs reduced my wife to tears and has also made me realize how much I miss my mum and dad.

 

I urge you, if you have not done so already, sit your parents, grand parents, elders down and talk to them. I didn't.

[Jabo]

Thanks for this Colin, and an especially relevant point today.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

[Sid]

Completely and utterly agree Colin. A very poignant but highly appropriate prompt to people as researching family history is an amazing journey into the past and can reveal much and give much too. Through talking to relatives and researching archives at Royal Air Force Marham my brother and I have provided much knowledge and, just as important, comfort to our elderly aunt whose brother (our Uncle Phil, aircrew on a Short Stirling shot down in 1942, no survivors) she knew little about his flying and what he got up to during his RAF career. She now has that information after 70 years of not knowing. Worth doing it just for that alone. 

[DD_Bongodriver]

I'd love to see my dad and uncle's RAF service records.

[DD_Arthur]

Bongo, you need to have a look here.  Or perhaps you need to get your dad and uncle to look here?

 

https://www.gov.uk/requests-for-personal-data-and-service-records

[DD_Bongodriver]

Cool link, thanks Arthur, both are deceased now, my dad was a National service conscript post war and my uncle was a coastal command pilot during the war, would I also be able to apply for my late brothers service records too? he left the army in the 90's and died only a few years after, or is that too recent? 

[DD_Arthur]

Bongo, if your mum is still around she could apply for all these.  If you want to do it yourself, apply for the service records of your father and brother where they put themselves in harm's way for the service of our country, then the government will charge a £30 f*ck you fee to cover their "admin".

 

I can apply for a copy of my own for free but I had to pay this last year to get a copy of my dad's service records.  The actual amount they charge is irrelevant.  The fact that they charge family members I find an affront.  If you know anything of your uncle's operational history then this site is worth checking out too; 

 

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/combat-reports-ww2.htm

[Jabo]

Interesting point Arthur, I wasn't charged for my great uncle's service record. The records people at Hendon were great.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

[Friar]

We were told that spouse's dont have to pay. 

[DD_Arthur]

That's right. Wives or rather widows, don't have to pay.  Sons and daughters are made to pay.  If you were the parent of a son  - who was married - killed in 'Stan then incredibly, you too would have to pay. 

[Painless]

Nice post Colin.

I don't know if I ever mentioned it but I researched my grandad on my fathers side because the story was that he had served on submarines in the Dardanells in WW1. He was supposed to have been in a famous action where by his sub was stuck submerged on anti submarine nets for a couple of days in the Dadanells. He died fairly young just after the war due to damaged lungs, supposedly caused by the battery acid fumes on board the sub. I sent his service record to the submarine museum curator in Portsmouth to decipher, (it was hard to read and make sense of).

It turned out that he was often drunk, often in fights and often in the cells. He lost his rank a couple of times and was never on submarines of any sort !

The medals that were believed to have been awarded to him for the Dardanells action turned out to be general service medals issued in their millions.

The curator said that he was likely a colourful character given to tall story telling.

No glory but interesting stuff non the less.

Cheers, Mick.