The Three Navigators

Like so many people, I am pleasantly surprised at how much time in the day is spent chatting to friends and family in these unusual days.

Technology certainly helps and it is great to be able to see as well as talk.

One notable exception is R W who is very much "analogue" rather than "digital". R expects clocks and watches to have hands and car dashboard instruments to have dials and pointers.

Mrs W is R’s Digital wingwoman and does all his emailing. And that is fine by me.

R W served as Navigator on an Avro Vulcan Bomber before transferring to RAF Mountain Rescue Helicopters. Having rescued several mountain climbers relying solely on phones with digital maps on a phone he has a healthy scepticism to these devices.

I spent quite some time yesterday, speaking with R about Probus Club matters and Navigators. For some strange reason, I find myself being asked to write about Navigators.

The first Navigator, I will feature is the fictional Sergeant George Bourne, who flew with the fictional Matt Braddock VC during WWII in an Avro Lancaster.

Matt Braddock VC was a comic strip character who resided in the pages of "The Rover" comic. He was drawn and written by DC Thomson artists and authors in Dundee.

The second Navigator wrote the book featured in today’s Blipfoto together with the vintage OS Maps. I spent many happy days navigating and driving all over Scotland in various rallies and other events.


The Ordnance Survey was published in 1961 and is Sheet 2 covering North Mainland of The Shetland Isles.


In February 1961 I began my study of the OS Maps in Geography Class.

R W would not approve of the digital navigator called Siri. Siri is the voice activated assistant in any iPhone that worked out a fully detailed route from our place to Vladivostok in less than 5 seconds providing 252 junction instructions over a distance of 7951 miles and taking 6 days and 2 hours to drive the route.

I don’t think I would like to drive to Vladivostok