The Wing Commander

We had a tour of Marlborough town centre St Peters church tower conducted by retired RAF Wing Commander Michael Stokes. It was only the two of us and the 20 minutes turned into an hour as we chatted with him telling us of his illustrious career.

He informed us during his career he trained about 500 pilots and was in charge of training pilots for mid air refulling during the Falklands War. He video briefed the Government Cobra Cabinet meetings during the war, and then Home Secretary Douglas Herd asked him to undertake meetings for the British with the Russians and Germany after the cold war ended.

He stated his favourite part of his career was as acrobatic pilot and he retired in 1978. Lovely person. Seems genuine and certainly has the demeanour of a career in the RAF.

(Processed in Kodak Tri-X film grain preset)