BARRY Lacey enjoyed every minute of his 37-year career in the RAF.

Now, as a member of the Oxford and district branch of the Royal Air Forces’ Association, he is helping to support less fortunate fellow servicemen and women and their dependants.

Warrant Officer Lacey, who lives at Bicester, joined the RAF at 18 and in 1965, was one of 15 RAF personnel posted to a huge base with 15,000 Americans in Nebraska in the United States.

He recalls: “We sailed on the Queen Elizabeth and returned after two-and-a-half years on the Queen Mary. That was how we travelled in those days.”

As an electronics specialist, his job was to help service RAF V-bombers, whose pilots flew out from Britain for navigation exercises in North America as part of their worldwide training.

Later, he switched to Phantom jets and spent another two-and-a-half years in America, this time in Washington with the US Navy.

Mr Lacey tells me: “I enjoyed every minute in the RAF and I was lucky enough to spend five years in the United States.”

Another Oxford RAFA member, George Reade, recalls how he went through two years of National Service without seeing an aircraft until the final weeks.

“I was stationed at RAF Stafford, which was a non-operational station supplying spares. Just before I was demobbed, I managed to get a ride in an Airspeed Oxford. That was the first time I’d seen a plane.”

Both Mr Lacey and Mr Reade have retained their interest in the RAF and are putting their energy into helping others through the Oxford and district RAFA branch.

The branch, which was formed in 1945, holds monthly meetings with a speaker, organises collections, and arranges outings to RAF bases and other places of interest.

It also has a welfare officer, Elaine Horne, who supports and often visits ex-servicemen and women and their families in need, and a serving RAF officer, Warrant Officer Steve Guppy, based at RAF Benson, who acts as a liaison with the RAF.

Although it has 279 members, many do not take an active part in branch activities and after three recent deaths, the branch committee is worried about the future.

Minutes secretary Kath Mulligan adds: “We are a support organisation, a friendly organisation and, with all the things we do, an exciting organisation.”

Anyone wishing to join the Oxford RAFA should call George Shrimpton on 01844 212106.