Working Progress

Hi! My name's Jason Jones or Jajo to my friends, family, cousins, wellwishers and pretty much everyone who knows me. And many who don't. This is meant to be a biography so I suppose I'd better tell you about my life to date.1

Well, it is pretty simple really. I was born in Portadown, Northern Ireland on the 12th July 1930. That happens to be a BIG date there and on the night of my birth, five people were killed in Sectarian Violence. Great start.2

I lived in Portadown for most of my early years. In a small, cramped two up/two down terraced house on the Annagh Road. It's still there if you take the bridge off the Tandragree Road and turn left, then right, you'll see where I used to live. I remember those days with only the fondest memories, playing until dark with my brothers Robert and John and my sister Kathleen. We weren't alone, of course, and swarms of kids would play with us when it was warm. Or cold. Or raining. Or snowing. Come to think of it, we played in all weathers.3

As for an education, that never got very far. I went to the local Convent School and learned the alphabet and multiplication tables there. It was run by Nuns, so the craig was always brilliant as you can imagine. If anyone's up for a party, it's nuns (I kid, of course).4

Anyway, passed that school right and quick and headed for 'big school'. Didn't enjoy that in the slightest, it was too 'big' for me. Although I did meet my best friend for life there. His name was Thomas and he was serious smart. No, I mean REALLY Smart. One of the top students in Ireland, so I believe. Teachers were always bathing in his brilliance. Me? I could barely hold the pen the right way up, let alone tell you the physological influences for Geoffery Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. I thought it was a load of rubbish actually but that talk didn't get you the grades, so I smiled, wrote crap and got my O-levels.5

When I had been about nine years old, my old man went off to fight someone called 'Jerry' and stop him killing the Frogs. By the time he came back, I understood perfectly where and what he had been doing. As a small boy, I would spend the long summer evenings, watching B-17's and B-24's heading out over the Atlantic from England before turning East for Occupied France. Their shining silver paint and the long tails of white vapour they painted across the sky set my imagination on fire. From those moments on, I knew what I wanted to do.6

I wanted to be a Fighter Pilot!7

When I left school, the first thing I did was head down to the local RAF Recruiting Office and demand that I be allowed to join. The poor chap on the other end of the desk wasn't sure how to react. he gave a form, I filled it out, he stamped it and bang! I was in the RAF.8

I headed over to London to learn how to fly and, I must admit, it wasn't THAT different to Portadown, except a few hundred times bigger. We were given training planes to practise on and wow, I though Maths was hard.9

The planes we were given were Gloster Meteors Mark III's, I believe. We flew them for hours and hours over the coast of England. By the time I'd got my wings, it was 1949 and herr Hitler had already put a bullet in his head, not that I cried over it or anything.10

Then we were told about an invasion of some country called 'South Korea' by another country called 'North Korea'. I hadn't a clue where any of this was happening but I was informed that it was somewhere near Japan. The UN were going in to repel the invasion and we had been lucky enough to provide air cover.11

When we got there, and it took WEEKS by aircraft carrier, we were told that the situation had changed somewhat. The Meteors we had brought were no longer up to scratch so we were to be given some new F-86 Sabre fighters from America. Fast, sleek and well armed. They were to be our weapons of choice for taking on the Commies.