Doug Tidy

Born in 1923, Douglas Tidy was 18 years old when he joined the Royal Air Force (that being the minimum age to serve).

Defective eyesight ended his career as a tyro pilot and he spent the rest of the war as a wireless operator having flown on his first twin engined aircraft in 1941. He served in the UK, Egypt, Trans-Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Masirah Island, and Aden before return to the UK in 1945 and demobilisation in 1946. He was a housemaster at Rendcomb College in Gloucestershire until he went to Oxford University in 1948 to complete an Honours Degree in English. After a Colonial Service course he went to Northern Nigeria as a District Officer until 1960.

He was the British Broadcasting Corporation West African Programme Organizer until 1962 when he returned to the RAF, retiring as a Squadron Leader in 1966. After the next 25 years in South Africa, managing country clubs and acting as curator of aviation at the Museum of Military History he retired from the South African Air Force (CF) as a Major.

He married Yvonne Assam, from Port Elizabeth, in 1985 and left South Africa in 1990 to join his sons in New Orleans in the USA. Another other son and daughter remain in South Africa in Johannesburg and Mpumalanga.

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