LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  1.  Mary Gill, my mother

  2.  My father, George Arnold Gill

  3.  This is me at fourteen months being held by my nurse

  4.  My father relaxing in our garden

  5.  My mother and her younger brother Clifford

  6.  My mother’s parents, William and Emily Taylor

  7.  The wedding of Sarah Jane Taylor, my great-aunt

  8.  Fred and Will Taylor, my great-uncles

  9.  My great-grandmother Taylor, in formal pose

10.  William Taylor, my grandfather

11.  My grandmother, Emily Thomas Taylor

12.  My grandmother Taylor (on the right) with a friend

13.  Henry Talbot, my grandmother’s admirer

14.  At Winchester with my grandmother

15.  My grandfather, George Gill, and me

16.  Out and about with my mother at Herne Bay

17.  This is me at eight

18.  Here I am in my spinal chair with my father, grandfather and dog Patch

19.  My cousin, Carolyn Taylor

20.  Stephen Coltham, my tutor, who was an important influence on me as a boy

21.  No. 28 Squadron RAF, Skegness, 1942

22.  Christmas Day menu, 1943

23.  Jimmy Blair and me in Dublin, September 1943

24.  Pilot Officer Michael Gill

25.  The ops board at Hartford Bridge on D+1, 7 June 1944

26.  An RAF Mitchell bomber takes off to attack a target in Northern France shortly after D-Day, 1944

27.  No. 137 Wing, Hartford Bridge, 1944

28.  The special fog dispersal aid ‘Fido’ in operation at an RAF bomber station

29.  The King and Queen leaving the Officers’ Mess at Hartford Bridge with the station commander, Group Captain Macdonald, September 1944

30.  Medal presentation parade at Hartford Bridge, September 1944

31.  Enjoying a drink at a café on the Champs Elysees with Hillerby, our Met Officer

32.  In the ops room at Vitry-en-Artois, near Douai, in Northern France, 1945. I’m the one with the pipe

33.  A knocked-out German Tiger tank on the Vimy–Lens road. Sergeant Metcalfe, Les Rates, me, Leading Aircraftmen Boulter and Nichols, April 1945

34.  Germany, 1945. I’m on the right. We both had revolvers

35.  Ruined Cologne, but the cathedral survived

36.  In Germany, 1946

Copyright note

The extract from Stephen Spender’s poem ‘I think continually of those who were truly great’ on p. 170 is reproduced by kind permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.