THURSDAY of last week was Air Gunners' Day at Yorkshire Air Museum and marked, once again, the getting together of so many of the unsung heroes of the Second World War.

These were the chaps who sat in cramped gun turrets either in the nose, tail or upper or lower positions, who fended off the attacks by enemy fighters. A lonely sort of a job, no other soul to see during the hours spent staring into the night, and usually frozen stiff into the bargain.

Waist gunners were rather fewer in British aircraft and the Americans really pioneered this style of defence, but whatever their position they were a breed on their own. They were there not only for their prowess in gunnery, but in quick observation, and a rapid ability to warn the pilot, up front, of attacks coming in from a quarter which he couldn't see. Many an air crew owe them a debt of gratitude. Like all ex-servicemen's groups, their numbers are obviously getting smaller, as anno domini takes over, and how many years will go by before some newspaper headlines will announce, 'The last air gunner of all from WWII'?

They marched proudly past the saluting base as Linton's CO took the salute, the Memorial Flight Lancaster flew over in two low passes, and everyone thrilled to the song of four Merlins again. A Chipmunk Trainer gave a spirited display and four Tucanos, for all the world looking like four Mustangs, and sounding much the same (just letting the imagination wander a little), dived out of the sky in tight diamond pattern formation doing their very best, as they knew their CO would have his eye on them and returning in their own style of wine-glass formation. A good day for all, as old comrades and their wives met once again for the annual 'natter'. "Every year a bonus," I heard one say.

The town council's collective service of dedication took place last Sunday when civic leaders and councillors took time off to give thanks for another year of community service, and to look forward to the forthcoming year of peace and wise decisions. Taking place in a Christian Church it might be reasonable to assume that some might have offered their prayers to their Christian God, forgetting, perhaps, that flying a hundred yards away on the Town Hall flag mast was, and still is, the flag of the emperor Vespasian, under whom Christian persecution started, who with his son built the Coliseum wherein such horrors took place and whom the self-same councillors chose to approve the use of his profile as a town marque in his honour. I believe there might be a word to describe this action, but I call it muddled thinking, if indeed any thought was given to it. Someone should be thrown to the lions. The flag should come down and the use of the logo discontinued and replaced by one of the many Yorkshiremen or Englishmen there is to choose from.

I have often read that the changes in spelling of a person's name can be blamed on the registrar of births of many years ago. Surnames, sounding the same, can be spelled in various ways, and once on the birth certificate that has tended to be the 'correct' and legal way it must be spelled. Some names on old birth certificates spelled differently to the parents' were often due to a simple mistake, or sometimes just because he didn't ask how it was spelled and entered what he thought it was. I was in the Gazette office the other day chatting to a young lady with the name of Marion. She had been born in Farndale and she told me that father has gone to register her birth with the instructions that she was to be called Marianne. However, proud father came home with the message that "You can't have that name and it has to be Marion". I reckon that village registrar didn't quite know how to spell the eight-letter version and so Marion it is.

We also talked about name origins, hers originally being Carter, because she said her ancestors had been just that, and as often happened in those days, they took on the name of their trade. Father, she told me, was the first one out of Farndale in the winter of '47. He rode out on top of the telephone wires, for that was the only way he knew where the road was. I don't think we've had a winter like that one since. Thank goodness.

Old school friend Aubrey Wood of Norton and now of Whitby, reminds me of a word I used recently - "Thingumajig" - and says it was the lyric of the Umbrella Man - Flanagan and Allen, quoting two lines you'll all remember "... bring your parasol, it may be small it may be big; he repairs them with what you call a 'thingumajig'." Thanks Aubrey, you've had me humming that tune all week!

He tells me that another old friend, Noel Goodwill, whose mum kept the little shop in 'Nowhere Lane', on the middle of County Bridge (Malton or is it Norton?), is in Beechwood and "keeping remarkably well". One of the schoolboys wrote The Murder At The Gas Works, whilst at school, but can't remember just who it was now.

Observation: 'Writing and travel broaden your derriere, if not your mind, and I like to write standing up'. Ernest Hemingway 1950.

Updated: 09:22 Thursday, July 19, 2001