Living in the Slipstream

Here is a collection of tales told by wives of RAF personnel, often hilarious, always witty and touching, spanning the period from the Cold War and the 1950s to the present.

These women reveal, in their authentic voices and colourful portraits, what life as an RAF wife is really like – when a whole family can be required to up-sticks and move with almost no notice, when rank pulls favour even at home, when things go comically wrong during a royal visit, and also the grimmer realities of being in the services, when an unexpected phone call can mean a parent is suddenly off to war and won’t be around to read a bedtime story.

----- Jill Black is a garden designer and landscaper who has won a silver medal at the Chelsea Flower Show. She lives with her husband in Harpenden, Hertfordshire.

Holly Jeffers began her working life as a buyer for an Oxford Street department store in the swinging sixties. She and her husband live in south-west France.

Alison Bairsto undertook varies careers such as Industrial Microbiologist, Dutch Elm Disease Project Manager, PA/ Book Keeper, and Market Researcher. Finally becoming Practice Manager in a GP surgery, she spent 17 years in the NHS. She and her husband live in Swayfield, Lincs.