Now that the book is out in all formats, there didn’t seem much to talk about on the website.

Today sees the first of a monthly series, picking a photo from the box (not necessarily from the book) and talking about it.  If you’d like to know more about any photograph in the Gallery, just get the description and go over to the White Water Landings Monthly Photos post and leave a comment including the photo you’ve selected.

You’ll be pleased to know that the long-awaited book now has a date for publication: 11th May 2015.

You can keep up with all the latest news on the book release and any promotional activity on the new website White Water Landings (http://whitewaterlandings.co.uk)

A few of the last posts on here have transferred across to the new site (along with their comments), but all the older information will remain here as an archive.  This blog has been renamed “Geoffrey’s Box” to tally with the idea of the archive – and its original name!  We’ve come full circle.

Please do sign up at the new website to get email notifications of news and events.

Pre-release copies of the book will be available for review – see the new website for details.

I delved into the box to look through the unmounted photographs, still in their paper covers.  I had been hoping that they were ones post-1939, which is as far as Geoffrey’s photo album goes.  Unfortunately my hopes were unfounded: nearly all of them are the rejects from those films.

There were a couple of gems, though…

I’ve finished the first draft and am working on tightening it up a little more, and adding some photographs.  When I’ve done that there will be a draft available on pdf for what is called beta-readers – people who are willing to read through it and make constructive comments.  This will not be a fully grammar-edited version, although it shouldn’t be too bad.

Let me know in the comments (or by email if we’ve corresponded) if you would like a beta copy when available.

A long time since the last comment on here.  I’m working on the book, should have finished the first draft by the end of September.  I keep changing my mind on how best to approach it.  They say you should tell the story rather than recount someone’s memoirs, but I find the way Geoffrey tells his stories engaging.  I’m biased, of course.  I decided to get the first version done, then edit it tighter and see what happens next.

I am sad to hear of the passing of Aileen Druce on September 2nd 2012, in the Durban area.  Aileen and Jimmy were great friends of my parents, Geoffrey and Frances, having met in Cairo during the latter part of the war.  Aileen has been able to clear up a number of minor matters over the last few years while I have been transcribing Geoffrey’s tapes.  It was a pleasure to meet her in my youth and to correspond with her more recently.

With sympathy to her family.

Thank you to John Buchan for the information.

After a long time between posts, working on other projects, I turned back to tracing the fates of the other Commercial Trainees, since Geoffrey’s box included a mailing list.  He had not updated it much since 1993.  Most of the updates have been accomplished with the England & Wales register of Deaths to 2006, but the obituary for Sir Ross Stainton (which I had been somewhat alert for, since I knew he had taken part in a documentary about five years ago) passed me by.

Here is the link to the obituary in the Telegraph.  Sir Ross Stainton 1914 – 2011

After a little correspondence (thank you) I have changed the title of this blog to “White Water Landings”.  This reflects the description of a flying boat landing (and presumably taking off too).  I couldn’t find any snappy quote within  the transcripts, but I was inspired by the picture in the blog header and what Geoffrey said of the first flying boat to arrive at Lindi:

“To have this flying boat coming in and landing, the magnificent flying machine coming down and landing on the water, beautiful spray coming up till she’d settled down, and then taxiing to the moorings … everyone was exceedingly happy!”

Thank you to my correspondent who drew my attention to a talk on Wednesday 22nd February 2012 at the Royal Aeronautical Society, London on Flying Boats.  You can get the details here.

The speaker is Richard Knott whose book Flying Boats of the Empire was published by Robert Hale in 2011. His previous publication was Black Night for Bomber Command, published in 2007 by Pen & Sword. That text is an investigation into Black Thursday – 16 December 1943 – when 43 aircraft crashed returning from a raid on Berlin.

(Lecture starts 18:00, ends 19:30)

Having recently published an ebook of children’s stories, it seems to me that it might be an opportunity to published Geoffrey’s memoirs in this way as well.  It would add another dimension to the Imperial Airways literature, i.e. the ground view.  I know of some of the books in print, and some that are out of print (e.g. the much sought-after Adventurous Empires), and some that have been in preparation for some time.