PER ARDUA AD ASTRA

Apparently today the RAF is a hundred years old - Happy Birthday!

This is the sole object I retain from my useless father. He gave this beautifully made powder compact to my mother while he was an RAF Fight-Lieutenant for her 26th birthday in 1941. He bought it with her money of course - & a month or two later he wrote from the United States to announce that he wouldn't be coming back.

My useless father followed his career as a con man & a serial bigamist, leaving single mothers destitute all around the English-speaking world.

OK - rant over!