An Interesting Visit.

I think you're being harsh on yourself there. What is an interesting life ? You've flown passenger jets, I think that is very interesting and quite something.

I was thinking of you when I said that “people quite often say”. I agree that I haven’t had a boring type of life in general, yet when I compare my own memorable events with his, my life kind of falls down. I’m not saying that I would have chosen a different life, I would guess he would agree. I don’t think I’d like to have lived his life, but with both of us at age 57 I would say he’s been ‘lucky’ to have survived as he has done. 

We met aged 20 when we drove alternate weeks to meet our flying instructor at various airfields around the area where we lived. He had just completed his national service and we worked at the same place without ever seeing each other. He saw action during his time in the army and after during camps the South Africans had to go to for some years after the two they served. Apart from action, he was nearly killed in a military parachuting incident, this put an end to his flying ambitions but he was still passed fit for military duty! 

Later on we moved independently to Pretoria where he got robbed at gunpoint by someone he probably worked with. All this before aged 24, his excitement hadn’t even really begun.

I really wish I could write his autobiography but as he says, he wouldn’t want it published until many years after he and his family had long since passed on.

He’s no bullshitter.