Although F. and H. ( Aircraft ) is a partnership between myself, Bill Fisher, and my wife Andra the day to day running of the business is down to me.  These pages are intended to tell you about what I do in my spare time.

I was born in 1941 at Old Coulsdon, Surrey, about 30 minutes walk from RAF Kenley and the same on a bus from Croydon .  Being born close to an active RAF station during the war, aircraft seem to have been part of my life from an early age.  I remember watching the search lights through my bedroom window and my oldest surviving negative depicts a Spitfire in a blast pen at Kenley during the filming of Reach for the Sky.

By the time I went to the grammar school I was reading aviation magazines and aircraft were beginning to take over my life.  It was there that I met Bernard Clarkson who was later a founder member of the Historic Aircraft Preservation Society and co-owner with me of the F 86e Sabre G-ATBF. 

The Sabre at Dover Docks on its way from Italy to Biggin Hill.

It was also the time that I was introduced, through Stan Brant for whom I did a paper round, to the Tiger Club at Redhill.  There I made friends with people like Neil Williams and Benjy.

After leaving school I went to work in London as a Lloyd's insurance broker  and, through the letters pages of Air Pictorial, met up with Graham Trant, and Russ Snadden ( much later of Bf 109 fame )  which resulted in me joining the Air-Britain, Air Relics Research Group, which evolved into the Historic Aircraft Preservation Society.

It was at this time that I persuaded the French to give me a Lancaster VII, WU-15, then located at Noumea in New Caledonia. 

WU-15 photographed at Bankstown in August 1964 by Nev Parnell prior to it becoming G-ASXX.

 It was eventually registered G-ASXX to Russ and myself and with a lot of help from industry and a group of Australians, flown to Biggin Hill.  35 year on it is now kept at East Kirby about an hours drive from my present home.  I also obtained a Corsair IV KD 431 from Cranfield, which went to the Fleet Air Arm Museum, the Sabre ( obtained from the US government but located in Italy ), a Firefly ( which unfortunately never got out of Australia ) and a number of other aircraft - most of which are still displayed in museums.

I was still working at Lloyd's but wanted to get more involved with aircraft, so when the members of HAPS decided they wanted to transfer the assets to Reflectaire Ltd. I  made a career change and went to work for Farm Aviation Ltd. who were crop spraying with an aircraft which has always interested me, the DHC-1 Chipmunk. 

Not long after the last Chipmunk had retired I decided to return to Lloyd's, this time working for Lloyd's Aviation Department. 

Somehow I could not find the Pawnee as interesting as the Chipmunk.  This was Mike Pruden spraying potatoes with G-AVPY.

 I spent 19 years working at LAD before leaving in 1990 to run F. and H. ( Aircraft ) on a full time basis.  Whilst at LAD I had my first CHIPMUNK book published and in 1996 CHIPMUNK - the first fifty years came out.

I am now in a position where I can do those things which I want to do and not those that I have to do !