Obituary of Arthur Record

My Father's love affair with flying began when he was a boy. According to his brother's, father preferred reading technical reports of the latest aeroplanes rather than schoolboy comics.

When war broke out in 1939, father, aged 18 immediately volunteered for the Air Force. At his interview he was asked by a bushy moustached recruitment officer if he could ride a horse. Father somewhat bemused replied that he could. This seemed to satisfy the examiner and father was promptly sent for training with the Fleet Air Arm in Portsmouth.

Much to fathers consternation, he was made to row boats around the harbour with, in his own words, "bombs dropping all around". Father's naval training was followed by a posting to Canada to learn to fly. On completion of the course and much to father's bitter disappointment he was transferred to the ATA. Nevertheless whilst contributing to the war effort this posting gave father the opportunity to indulge in his passion for flying.

During the war he flew a huge variety of aircraft, to name but a few Wellingtons, Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters, Typhoons and Swordfish.

After the war father spent a brief time working for the family business, the Record Electrical Company, before joining Berry's Electric as a salesman in Leeds.

In the mid 1950's he decided to go into pig farming on a large scale. Regrettably this venture was marred by a severe outbreak of swine fever in the 1960's which effectively ended his farming days. Father recovered from the set back to build up his own engineering company designing and manufacturing children's playground equipment for public parks and holiday camps from his base in Selby Yorkshire. The business was sold in 1989 in order to concentrate on a construction division building leisure centres.

Father continued to work through his retirement until the age of 80 when he finally took a back seat from the business world but not from flying! Father's passion for aeroplanes and flying never left him. He loved his little Mistral and enjoyed many happy times flying and being with flying friends.

Sadly his death in August 2004 from cancer has ended his flying days here but I am sure that wherever he has gone, there will be a little red Mistral biplane somewhere buzzing the skies.

Report by Nigel Record