Got my e-mail to Irvin “Return to sender”, the telephone number is no longer valid and the yellow pages doesn’t list them any more just the Irvin -GQ site in Wales (which had closed for the day by the time I got their number).

Anyone able to fill me in on what happened to Irvin at Letchworth? Are they yet another historic company eaten up by some grand consortium?

Dean

Nope, no matter how much i enlarge it the serial is unreadable. I’ve tried tinkering around with the image in photoshop to no avail. The only readable part is the squadron code J-DM. The camo is different to the other mossie but it seems to have a similar/same tail logo (the white circlet with an animal in it). Is that significant?

No it isn’t – I assume you meant the pilot rather than the lead singer of “The Who”? 😀

Lt Cdr Eric “Winkle” Brown was CO Aerodynamics Flight at RAE Farnborough until August 1949, and so that could be him in the front row.

Tis indeed the “Aero Flight” at Farnborough in 1949 and it is “Winkle” Brown, 5th from right, front row.

I guess I should have realised that the picture may well have appeared in his book.

He was not actually the CO though, that honour goes to the chap in the middle, a Group Captain whose brother gave me the picture. I happen to own his Group Captains cap and his later Air Vice-Marshall’s hat too.

Anyone now want to guess any of the others? As a clue there’s a very well known Battle of Britain pilot in amongst them.

I think I’ve seen this somewhere before – is it an ETPS photo and is that Jeffrey Quill at the far left of the 3rd row (in civvies with a natty striped tie)?

Hmmm! If you have seen it before I’d be grateful if you could recall where?

ETPS – nope.

Not Jeffrey Quill.

From my research into 609 it struck me that many men of that generation were known by a totally different forename to their official one.

I know what you mean e.g. when is Jack really Jack or in fact John (never understood how that nickname works!). The frustrating part of this enquiry is that Ben Lee is obviously quite a distinctive guy.

As an aside, if Ben (assuming that is his correct name) was so badly burnt, where else might he have been treated other than east grinstead? Were there other specific burns units around? I assume there must have been.