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I was born in Bromley in 1960 as my fathers family came from Chislehurst, which is where we lived until moving to East Boldre in the New Forest when I was 4. The Wains were a big family there (my parents have a large old ‘History of Chislehurst’ book with all the gen including gravestone counts and so on) who were mainly involved in skilled craft work, as are all the men in my immediate family. Indeed the name itself is derived from Wainright, which was a cart maker or builder, one of the most skilled and technical jobs back when surnames were invented. I went to East Boldre school where I was one of five kids my age. It’s closed now. Susan and Heather, where are you now? Then I went to Priestlands Comprehensive, which was and still is a very good school. Thank you to all the teachers there, even ‘Titty’ Day, if you’re still alive, and I bet you wouldn’t pick us up by our hair now! I joined the RAF by accident, after a year wondering what to do at Brockenhurst College, when Mark Harvey asked me to give him a bit of moral support at the CIO and they accepted me and rejected him! If you want some top quality building/decorating work in the New Forest/Bournemouth area he’s your man, by the way.

I am one of the 51 squadron crew chiefs based at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, UK. My work is to co-ordinate the ground maintenance of the aircraft at home or abroad, so I do a lot of travelling. I started out on Vulcan bombers at Waddington after 3 years apprentice training at RAF Halton. I was involved in preparing the aircraft for the Falklands bombing raids. When the Vulcans were scrapped I went to Kinloss and have worked on Nimrods ever since. If you don’t mind the quiet pace of life in Scotland and like seeing the world there are few jobs to beat the line at Kinloss. I’ve done over 1000 hours flying now, which is not bad for a groundie who’s never had a penny of flying pay! I used to run a small home business doing up fridges and selling them to the single guys for use in their barrack rooms. It kept us afloat when the mortgage rate was at it’s highest. Unfortunately fridges are very reliable so once a few hundred had been sold everyone who wanted one had one and they just passed them around as they were posted in and out. Therefore I got into selling something more disposable, which is what PRINT BONUS is all about!
I am currently the deputy webmaster at RAF Waddington where I do quite a lot of the graphics work, most of the site design, and all the historical content. I also wrote all the code for this site, Maryan's Childminding, and PRINT BONUS.

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