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Mr John F Middleton

14 August 1927 - 09 September 2015

John was born in Ealing, West London in 1927.  He was awarded a scholarship to St. Pauls school and learnt to fly gliders in the school’s Air training Corps.  He joined the RAF as a wireless fitter in 1946 and enjoyed the challenge and responsibility of fixing aircraft radios at short notice, as well as getting the opportunity to fly in aircraft such as the Wellington bomber.  He was promoted to Corporal and ended his RAF career in the training school where he taught recruits about radio technology.

Following his time in the RAF he studied electrical engineering at the London Polytechnic, attaining a first class degree and subsequently becoming a chartered engineer.  He was recruited by EMI’s guided weapons division where he worked on radar-based proximity fuses for the Sea Slug missile before moving to AFA Minerva as Engineering Manager, overseeing the design and development of automatic fire alarms and intruder detection systems.  Whilst at AFA Minerva he represented the UK at the European Society for Automatic Alarm Systems.

He enjoyed a long and happy retirement, including many respite stays at the Star & Garter in Richmond, and more recently in Surbiton, where he enjoyed the quizzes, a daily game of scrabble, the ice cream and performing his recitals of his favourite poems “Abdul Albulbul Amir”, “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” and many others.  He will be missed but fondly remembered by his wife Barbara and sons Ian and Andrew.