Andrea Fraser
My husband was a young 20-year-old airman stationed in Episkopi in 1960. I was an 18-year-old Cypriot girl living in Nicosia, but fate brought us together. He visited some mutual British friends across the road and that’s where we met.
Despite all the objections from my family, I followed my heart, and we got married in October 1960 in the high Commissioner’s office followed by a Greek Orthodox Church wedding. We lived in Limassol and the following year we were blessed with a baby boy. In 1962 he was posted to Wittering, and we made our home in Stamford. We lived happily for 60 years but I lost him five years ago after battling his illness bravely for three years.
Andrea and her late husband on their wedding day, 1960.
Steve Clark
I flew back into Brize Norton on a VC10 from Hong Kong on 14 February 1988, I knew I was shortly off to The Falklands for four months and then after a course at Cranwell, I was to be posted to RAF Bruggen. It was now or never! I had split up with my girlfriend 18 months previously who was now going out with someone else. I was exhausted after the flight back, but I jumped in the car and drove up to Sheffield after phoning my ex-partner saying I was desperate to see her. It was Valentine’s Day, everywhere was booked up, but I managed to find a table in a nice Italian restaurant where I proposed. To my surprise and delight she said yes, after making me get down on one knee in front of the whole restaurant’s clientele. The next day she told her shocked mother and an amazingly understanding boyfriend. We got married on 5 Nov 1988 at RAF Cranwell. Now every Valentine’s Day, she smiles and reminds me of the proverb: “marry in haste, repent at leisure!”
Steve and his wife on their wedding day, 5 November 1988
Kevin McClean
Laura and I met while we were both serving in the Royal Air Force at RAF Lyneham in 2005. At the time I was posted to Tactical Medical Wing, DART Squadron, working as an RAF Paramedic, and Laura was serving as an RAF Nurse.
Our relationship grew from a friendship after being introduced by a mutual friend whom I had previously served with in Iraq. We married in 2007 while we were both still serving. We were fortunate to spend parts of our careers together, including deploying to Afghanistan in 2010, which remains a particularly meaningful experience for us both.
The RAF has remained a constant part of our lives ever since. I have continued to serve as a Reservist since leaving regular service in 2015. We now have two children, George aged 10 and Erin aged 14. Erin is currently a member of the RAF Air Cadets and hopes to become a pilot one day.
For us, the RAF did not just shape our careers, it shaped our family. Meeting through service is something we remain very proud of.
Kevin and his wife Laura while serving
Margaret Reading
I joined the WRAF on 1 October 1968, quite by mistake. I was going to join the Navy as a photographer but was captured by an RAF recruiter as I went through a wrong door. He asked what I was interested in going into after I passed the tests and was told I could do whatever I wanted to.
He took me through all the engineering options but none of them really clicked. He then informed me there was only one more engineering trade, but he didn’t know if this trade took females. After phoning the MOD and showing an 80% pass at the end of my Trade Training, I shortly after became the first Female Armourer since the end of WW2.
Keith and I met in RAF Kinloss after Keith had just returned from Cyprus, and I was into my second year at Kinloss. Somebody told him that I was an Armourer, which needed my confirmation for as he didn’t believe it at first. That was the beginning of our romance. Keith was 25 years old, and I was 21 years young. We married in 1970 on a tight budget. My wedding dress cost £7 from a dress hire shop in Inverness along with a Nottingham lace hooded cape for £12. We had bread, butter and sliced ham for the buffet, a few bottles of beer, and a very simple wedding cake made by a local bakery.
The church was full of friends as unfortunately no family could make it to Kinloss. Keith’s parents lived in Cornwall; my parents had met Keith when they came to Kinloss on holiday so they couldn’t afford to come back.
Once the service finished, we exited the church to two pipers playing their bagpipes. At the end of the pavement was a type F bomb trolley dressed up as a train being pulled by the bomb dumps tractor. I was then presented with a bouquet of armourer’s tools. When we got back home my ham sandwiches were not on their own, the wives of the men I worked with had got together and produced a wonderful buffet, we remember it well.
Margaret and Keith on their wedding day in Kinloss, 1970.
