I was born in 1960 and always knew Pat and Eric as “Uncle Eric and Auntie Pat”, even though Pat was really my cousin on my mum’s side. Some of of my earliest memories when growing up in Southampton were of my mum pointing up at little training planes with the brightly coloured wingtips that flew over our house from the nearby flight training airfield at Hamble, and mum saying “quick, that might be Uncle Eric; go outside and give him a wave.” It was where he was training to fly. A few years later, in the mid 1960’s, I can still vaguely recall that he took me to Eastleigh Airport and let me sit in the flight deck of an airliner. I think it may have been a BOAC VC10. Amazing and exciting for a wide-eyed little boy. When Pat and Eric got married, I was their pageboy. All these years later, I’ve still got the gold tie clip that they gave to me in a little black presentation box to say thank you. We saw them often in those early days, and when the children came along, Pat would often pop in with them, as her mum and dad Win and Len, lived not far from us. I was always fascinated and in awe of the stories about all the wonderful far-flung places that Eric, and often Pat too, visited. It was like listening to enjoyable episodes of Whicker’s World. When I was growing up, Pat and Eric were simply the most exciting couple that I had ever come across. Fast forward to the 1980s, and following Eric’s remarkable landing of the stricken 747 in Jakarta, we were back in touch. I remember visiting their house in Camberley, and in the garage was a massive print of the cockpit of Eric’s 747 on the wall. It was like actually being on board. He explained exactly what happened on that potentially fatal night in his typical matter of fact - and amusing - manner. I still have a copy of the Betty Tootell book of the absolutely heroic episode that he signed for me as “Uncle Eric”. Anyway, by then I was running my own publishing company, and because a Eric had recently been named “Man of the Year” I decided that it would be fitting to commission a book of the event that came out in 1991 with Eric on the cover. Pat and Eric took my wife and I to a lovely “do” at The Savoy in London for the Men of the Year event. Anyway, quite simply I will remember Uncle Eric very fondly as a real character across the whole of my life; witty, funny, clever, unique, exciting and latterly heroic. Clive Brooks