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Drawings on display

Faces from the golden age of the silver screen join with those of local people at Newark Library this month in an exhibition of drawings by former local resident Squadron Leader Jack Currie (1921-96).

Many people will remember Jack Currie during his time in Newark in the Sixties through his active involvement with the town cricket club and the Robin Hood Theatre at Averham.

Many others will be familiar with his highly successful books about the RAF's bomber offensive during the second world war including The Augsburg Raid Battle Under the Moon and Round the Clock (with Philip Kaplan).

He also wrote three books about his own wartime experiences - Wings Over Georgia Mosquito Victory and Lancaster Target the last of which brought him to the notice of an even wider audience when it was turned into an award-winning BBC television documentary presented by Jack himself.

Two further television programmes followed including a fascinating investigation into airfield ghosts. However it was as an artist that John Anthony Logan Currie began his career and it is this aspect of his life which comes under the spotlight in the current library exhibition.

Jack Currie was born in Sheffield but brought up in Harrow Middlesex where after leaving school he became cartoonist on the Harrow Observer.

Despite relinquishing this post when war broke out drawing remained a pastime which absorbed him for the rest of his life resulting in a wealth of amusing and perceptive sketches of his family life in the RAF and the places he visited.

On occasion his cartoons even made the pages of national publications such as Punch. Jack Currie died in October 1996 aged 74 and last year his second wife Kate gathered together many of his drawings into a book which she published called Jack Currie's World.

It is from this publication that the images currently on display at Newark Library are taken.

They span about 30 years of Jack's life from the Forties to the Seventies including the time he spent in Newark where as a regular at the bar of the Clinton Arms Hotel he sketched many of his friends and acquaintances in the town.

Jack Currie came to the Newark area in 1959 when he was posted to RAF Syerston. He lived with his family on the base for about two years before moving into Newark itself first to London Road and later to Falstone Avenue.

In 1964 he retired from the RAF and took up a position as Civil Defence Officer for Newark.

It was a position of responsibility which bore testimony to his long and distinquished service with the RAF - service for which he had volunteered at the very outbreak of war in 1939.

Thrilled by aeroplanes seen at pre-war air pageants Jack Currie immediately volunteered for aircrew although while awaiting acceptance he served as an ARP stretcher bearer and ambulance driver during the London blitz.

Finally in 1941 he was selected for pilot training under the Arnold scheme in which RAF pupil pilots were trained in America by the United States Army Air Corps.

He later described his flying training experiences in his book Wings over Georgia (1989). He declined a commission to remain in America as a flying instructor and returned to the UK as a sergeant-pilot with C Flight of 12 Squadron to take part in the Allies' bomber offensive over Europe - which by 1943 was building towards its climax.

Lancaster Target published in 1977 is a brilliant evocation of those times and the men whose bravery finally won through. There were however many brushes with death.

On his fifth operation to Hamburg on August 2 1943 Jack's Lancaster was turned upside down and into a spin in cumulonimbus cloud.

As it fell 10 0 both ailerons were ripped off and it was only through a combination of skill and brute strength that he succeeded in bringing his aircraft home using only three engines and rudder.

His CO immediately recommended him for a Conspicuous Gallantry Medal which - almost unbelievably - was turned down. On completion of his first operational tour however he was awarded the DFC.

In the last days of the war in Europe Jack was posted to the Pathfinder Forces 1409 Meteorological Flight in which he flew Mosquitos.

This period of his career is described in his book Mosquito Victory (1983) which is dedicated to his first wife Nina. Jack Currie remained with the RAF after the war receiving a permanent commission and served at RAF Lindholme West Kirby in Cyprus and at Syerston.

He was an active participant in town life playing for Newark Cricket Club involving himself in theatrical productions at the Robin Hood Theatre at Averham and (notably) playing the king in the Newark Amateur Operatic Society's 1961 production of The King and I.

His work as Civil Defence Officer for Newark lasted from 1964 until the end of the decade when the government closed down all but the county tier of CD operations.

Jack was out of a job and in 1970 with much sadness at leaving Newark he moved with his family to London to take up a position as south east area secretary in organising small scale air shows which eventually grew into the RAF Benevolent Fund's annual Royal International Air Tattoo which we know today.

In 1975 he moved to Easingwold near York as Civil Defence lecturer at the Home Defence College.

He finally retired in 1986. Nothing however could diminish Jack's love for the Lancaster bomber in which he had served during the war.

A highlight of his later years was when he sat once more in the cockpit of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's Lancaster and took the controls high over Lincolnshire.

Jack Currie's fond sketches of his Newark friends of 30 years ago now represent an important contribution to the history of the town and will I am sure stir many memories among local residents.

Some of his subjects however are not named and any assistance in helping to put a name to the faces in the library exhibition would be greatly appreciated. The exhibition continues until mid March.

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