Yesterday we gathered at Mona Vale in Sydney to bade farewell to our friend, Alan Bones . Family, friends, ex Qantas crew and the gliding fraternity were there in force.
It was a day filled with emotion – sadness to lose him, an apparently fit & vibrant 74 year old, compassion for Pauline, his children & grand children at their loss & some humour, when it appears that golf was the only aspect of his life that he didn’t master. Alan was a quiet & unassuming man. He was never one to dominate the conversation, but when pressed he could quickly “hold the floor” on the technicalities of airline flying, aircraft, engines & so on. He started as an apprentice, gained engineering qualifications, a pilots licence & completed his career with Qantas as a senior check captain. There is one story that best illustrates Alan’s quiet determination. In charge of a 707 about to depart Bangkok for Sydney in 1972, Alan was instructed to hold for some “additional cargo”. An RAAF Hercules had just landed from Saigon with the “additional cargo” being 74 orphaned Vietnamese babies. The babies were quickly taken on board the 707, but the Thai authorities insisted on a revised passenger list before clearance for departure. No problem for Alan – to the original passenger list were added the names of the new passengers ---- “Mickey Mouse”, Minnie Mouse”, ”Donald Duck’ ………….. etc. etc To paraphrase Peter Fitzsimon’s “you’ve gotta love this bloke”!! We all did.
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