Page 1177 - Reading Mercury

Tuesday morning aged 75. He had lived in Wokingham for 36 years and worked in
Slumberland, Molly Millers Lane, for 22 years until it closed down.
The rest of his career was with British Aerospace as a security sergeant. After his
retirement in 1988 he took up the post as Town Crier until February this year. His
widow, Avril, said he was a wonderful character and talked to everyone. He took part
in two Town Crier championships on the Isle of Wight and Canada where he was
accompanied by his wife. They had three sons. He was cremated at East Hampstead
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Crematorium on Wednesday, 11 November.

TOWN CRIER DEREK AIMS TO BE A ROARING SUCCESS
Wokingham has a new town crier, traffic warden, Derek Bowles. Derek, aged 62,
said he had seen previous town criers perform while on traffic warden duty and
picked up a few tips. He said that he would like to give something back to the
community although I always fancied doing this job a little nearer retirement. I am
glad to be doing something in the district which I really want to do and still be
involved in the town and meeting people.”
Before being picked out for the post Derek practised his shouting across the Rose
pub car park at home although his cats didn’t appreciate the noise. Derek succeeds
Ron Rimmer who died on Tuesday after a long illness. Derek aged 62 has lived in
Wokingham for 18 years. Derek will be representing the town in other areas and
expects to compete in a shout-out competition to find the town crier of the year, as
well as attending many functions such as carnivals and fetes.

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Thur 10 Dec
HERO PILOT SAYS IT WAS ALL IN A DAY’S WORK
Passengers on board a British Airways 747 to Montreal owe their lives to the skill of
a Binfield (former Wokingham resident) pilot. In what has been described as one of
the most serious incidents of its kind the jumbo jet flown by Rick Craft, slammed into
a flock of 40 geese while circling above Montreal’s Dorval Airport.
Captain Craft, aged 46, who has been praised for his actions, was forced to make an
emergency landing in the dark after two of the aircraft’s four engines were knocked
out. Visibility for the crew was seriously affected by the remains of dead birds
splattered across the front of the flight deck. The impact destroyed the radar cone and
damaged the edges of the wings.
Captain Craft shut down the outer starboard engine. The other starboard engine was
revving hard but had no propulsion because of a dead bird stuck inside and also had to
be shut down.
Capt. Craft said, “all of us have flown through bird strikes before but not multiple
bird strikes like this. We felt impact after impact on the flight deck, but the passengers
were completely unaware of the extent of it all. I guess as a commercial flight goes,
this was an exciting incident but we handled it professionally and calmly. For us it
was all in a day’s work. It’s what we are paid to handle and trained to do”.
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The incident occurred at 6.43 pm Canadian time on November 19 , after the jumbo
had been told by air traffic control to circle because the runway was not ready.
A BA Spokesman said, “Captain Craft and his crew handled this episode
impeccably, drawing on the highest levels of skill and training.”

1999
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Thur 28 Jan
SADNESS AT THE LOSS OF EMMBROOK’S LOVELY LADY

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