Thursday 14th March 2024 6.30 – 9.30
Tony Aston is a freelance author living in Devon. He was born in the Midlands in 1953, just 8 years after the end of World War II at a time when Winston Churchill had returned to the House of Commons as Prime Minister and the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II had just taken place. He is a Fellow of The Security Institute and a member of the Society of Authors and the Historical Writers Association.
Inspired by his father’s wartime service with the Fleet Air Arm, Tony developed a keen interest in the 1939-1945 conflict. This led him to write “The Bomber and the Weathervane”, a true story of two friends, Helen and John, who had purchased, in 2009, an old, beaten-up weathervane, fashioned into a Lancaster bomber, the discovery, 12 years later, of a Lancaster serial number etched into the fuselage, the identification, from this, of a Lancaster JB453 OL-F, from 83 (Pathfinder) Squadron downed on the night of 2/3 January 1944 with all crew killed, the tracking down of the crews’ descendants, and the dedication, recommended and supported by the International Bomber Command Centre, of the weathervane as a permanent war memorial.
Tony was, for 27 years, a career police detective who was seconded for several years to New Scotland Yard. A second career followed which saw him become a counter-espionage specialist within the UK Defence Industry.
His first book, “Redditch – From the Chip Shop to the Batchley”, a childhood memoir, was published in 2022, and tells stories of life growing up in the Midlands during the 1950s and 60s at a time when towns and cities throughout Britain were striving to repair, rebuild and re-invent themselves after the war.
The evening starts with a delicious hot buffet supper in The Hub Café at 18.30.
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