I have altered the structure and look-and-feel of the blog / site. This has been to make it easier for me to maintain and edit. Please feel free to let me know if I have broken anything.
Michael Gatford
Update, November 15th 2017
Published
I have altered the structure and look-and-feel of the blog / site. This has been to make it easier for me to maintain and edit. Please feel free to let me know if I have broken anything.
Michael Gatford
The 1966 Ljubljana Air Crash. 
Dear Mike,
You only ever hinted once to me, in the South Wing staffroom, that you have this tragedy in your life, but I have from time to time thought about the little you told me. Had I been less self-absorbed and less busy-busy all the time I might have found a way to talk further with you. Our little chat must have been sometime in the 1980s. I am so pleased that you are now sharing your feelings and memories.
Typically, this is the first blog I have entered into – some things never change!
I am so pleased to be back in touch with Audrey and yourself, and that you have our ‘new’ address. We moved in 2013. We did have cards from you forwarded from the old address. Great to have news of Emily as well.
I look forward to reading your blog posts and have asked for them to come by email to my address, below. This is Nick’s computer.
Please pass on my love and good wishes to Audrey and I hope you are both well.
Love from Clare.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello Clare,
I’m glad that you did not mind me sending this to you, and that I had your correct address to send the card to. Please don’t feel that it is in anyway your fault that we did not talk about these things earlier. As I say in the blog, I have always felt that what happened to my family was private and publicly expressing my feelings was somewhat self-indulgent. However, that has all changed now,
The events of the last year have been quite momentous for me. I’m only sorry that they came too late for my mother to share in them too. I know it’s possibly a bit late (many of the survivors may have already died themselves) but it may be possible to contact others who themselves were very affected by the accident. My cousin Teri recently told me (for the first time) that a cousin of hers on her father’s side of the family was, at the age of 18, a trainee pilot in the RAF and was killed in an aircrash on the 30th December 1966, four months after our crash. How difficult have all the events of this year been for her.
I didn’t (couldn’t) speak at my mother’s funeral in 1997. However, her sister died recently, aged 89, and I wrote and read a eulogy at her funeral. This was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I initially wrote as part of the eulogy that “my mother had told her (my aunt) things about the actual crash itself that she would never tell me. Who can I ask now?”. However, when I came to read it in church I realised that this was too personal for me and also that I would not have been able to say the words.
By all means make further comments to the blog.
I look forward to seeing you before not too long.
Love to you and Nick,
Mike
LikeLike