I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety

Click a link to read the story from the beginning: Joining the Fleet Air Arm October 15th 1942 Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa 1943 H.M.S. Spurwing 1943 Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa October 1943 - November 1944 Hastings, near Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa 1943 - 1944 Visit of Admiral Peters to H.M.S. Spurwing January 1944 The Radio Section H.M.S. Spurwing 1944 Day Trip to Marampa February 6th 1944 Lumley Beach, Freetown, Sierra Leone March 26th 1944 The Concert April 1944 An Evening of Tribal Dances 22nd April 1944 H.M.S. Spurwing | H.M.S. Nabaron H.M.S. Nabaron MONAB 4 MSR6 1945 Ponam, The Admiralty Islands, British Pacific Fleet 1945 The End of the War

One of the most exciting aspects of the epublishing revolution is the proliferation of new writing that wouldn't be handled by the traditional publishers. I'm thinking particularly here of personal memoirs and family stories. I got into epublishing to help my husband bring his novel  Magnificent Britain  in front of an audience. It was several months after the launch of  Magnificent Britain  that I began to think about publishing a diary that my father had written during World War II.  I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II  was released as a Kindle ebook in October last year and I'm really pleased that I took the decision to publish it; my dad, who died many years ago, would have been amazed. I've downloaded and enjoyed reading several WWII memoirs and also this diary from a much earlier era.  From Trincomalee to Portsea: The Diary of Eliza Bunt 1818 - 1822  is a fascinating diary transcribed

In the introduction to I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II   I make the point that the majority of volunteers into the armed forces for the duration of WW2 had had little expectation of global travel prior to the war. When he signed up for the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy in 1943 my dad, Norman Buckle, had only ever been on holiday to a few seaside resorts such as Scarborough, Blackpool and Morecambe. He rarely went more than a few miles from home and usually this was on his bike. His war-time experiences took him over 4,000 miles from South Yorkshire to the coast of West Africa and over 12,000 miles to the Pacific Island of Ponam via Sidney in Australia. Norman was born in 1924 in Royston, a coal mining village in South Yorkshire. His mother's family (The Smiths) had moved to Royston in about 1880 and his father's family (The Buckles) had gone there in the late 1890s. The Smiths came from Mon

I wrote in the introduction to  I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II about Norman's family background. "His father, grandfather and great grandfather all worked at the local colliery and his paternal grandfather had been an under-manager at the pit." I think this photograph was taken in the 1890's. "Father" is the little boy standing on the front row. He was Sidney Henry Buckle (1881 - 1969). He spent his entire working life underground first as a pit pony boy and later in the maintenance of ropes and cables. Whenever I see images of pit ponies I'm always surprised at how big some of them are; certainly some are Shetland pony sized but others were much taller. Check out this link for stacks of images and you'll see what I mean.  Images of pit ponies  When I was about six or seven years old Sidney Henry, who was my grandad, used to take us for walks in the countryside arou