A SWINDON author has set down his memories of more than three decades working at airbases across the country.

The Airfield Years chronicles Gerald Dancer’s years as a civilian electrician working on projects at Lyneham, Fairford, Brize Norton, the long-gone RAF base at Clyffe Pypard and many other locations.

It is the third book of history written by the 84-year-old, who lives in Stratton with his wife, Marcia. The couple have two daughters and five grandchildren, and are about to become great-grandparents for the fourth time.

Mr Dancer’s earlier works are Stratton Revisited and Stratton Once Upon a Time.

Each sold out its edition, and The Airfield Years is close to doing the same, although it was never originally intended for publication.

“I started writing it in 2002 in hardback notebooks,” said Mr Dancer. “I wanted to set it down so the children and grandchildren could see it.”

Mr Dancer planned to leave the notebooks, his photographs and his drawings for posterity, but reckoned without daughters Vanessa and Claire, who secretly typed out the text, had it bound alongside those photographs and drawings and presented the finished volume to him as a Christmas surprise.

The cover image shows RAF Lyneham, photographed by the author last year. Only 13 copies of the initial print run of 50 remain.

The book is no dry recitation; it is instead packed with warm, vivid anecdotes of people and places, alongside Mr Dancer’s sketches and photographs of locations and aircraft he saw. The latter included America’s massive B36 Peacemaker and B47 Stratojet bombers. There are a total of 226 illustrations.

Early in the book Mr Dancer reveals how he came to work on the bases: “After leaving school I had a variety of jobs, including a stint in the Garrard’s engineering factory at Newcastle Street, Swindon, and the Great Western Railway Workshops, Swindon.

“I wasn’t happy in any of them; something wasn’t right, so in approximately 1948 I decided to do something else.”

His quest for ‘something else’ took him via the labour exchange to the Eastcott Hill home of a man called Ernie Carter, a contractor who needed an electrician’s mate for aerodrome contracts.

The ensuing decades saw him work on some of the most sensitive installations in the country, with the Cold War always threatening to become hot.

The Airfield Years costs £10, and can be obtained via theairfieldyears.blogspot.co.uk and by contacting the author on 01793 826368.