Hello
For those who don’t know, I’m Hannah, Jon’s eldest granddaughter, together with Hayley and Paige.
On behalf of my gran and the rest of our family, thank you all for being here today especially those that have travelled a long distance.
Jon was born 22nd September 1937 in Avening, Gloucestershire, to Charles and Winifred Kent. His younger brother David was born 8 years after him.
The family moved to Willodene in Washpool Horsley when Jon was a young boy and then Jon’s parents moved to Northampton in the early 70’s.
Jon’s early life living in the Cotswold’s was adventurous and joyful, he would often recall his antics as a young boy. I remember how he used to tell us about the time he went off for a week on his bicycle. His mother gave him a postcard to send back to her so she knew he arrived, he forgot to post it until the last day.
Jon attended Stroud Boys Technical School and then joined the RAF as an apprentice, 78th Halton entry and passed out on the 31st July 1957.
When stationed at St Athans he visited the Palais de dance hall in Bridgend where he met Gran - Ann, his wife of 62 years. His proposal to her was “marry me and I’ll take you to Germany”. They married in Bridgend on the 15th October 1960 and left for Singapore (not Germany) where they lived for 3 years and Michael was born. Moving back to the UK they stayed with Grans parents in South Wales and Beverley was born. As a family they lived in many places but settled in Moulton in 1978, whilst grandad continued with his RAF career.
Grandad had many postings with the RAF; as well as St Athans, Changi in Singapore, Wellesbourne, Marham, Bruggen and Wildenrath in Germany, Leuchars in Scotland, back to Marham and then Waddington, Honnington and finally Wattisham where he retired at the rank of Warrant Office after serving 38 years. During his time in the RAF, he travelled all over the world and could always recall what airplane he worked on. Sometimes he shared stories of various antics he got up to; Gambling in Vegas, commandeering Argie land rovers in the Falklands and a flight in a Phantom in Cyprus.
When we were on a family holiday, we landed at Goose Bay in Canada to refuel and he then told us all about when he was there. You could usually guarantee every country anyone visited, he’d been there before and had a story to tell.
After being retired from the RAF for 6 months – despite buying a motorbike and a sports car he became bored and went back to work as a quality control manager for a gift company (if you mentioned you liked a certain gift, you then had numerous versions of them – mum has at least 10 decorative teapots)! After the company relocated he was then employed as a driver at Hawes Signs and finally retired at 65.
Grandad had three passions in life; his family, travel and anything with an engine.
Grandad was always happy when he could take his family out for meals and would use, what we called his magic Barclaycard! He enjoyed family gatherings and was immensely proud of his son Michael and his partner Carmen, daughter Beverley and son in law Jamie, his granddaughters me, Hannah, my husband Marc, Hayley, her husband James, Paige, her partner Adam and his great grandchildren Alena and William and not forgetting his great grandpups Rosie & Madison.
 
Gran and Grandad travelled abroad on many holidays, back to Singapore, the Caribbean, Florida and Canada as well as numerous holidays to Europe. On a family holiday to Disney World we got caught in a rain storm waiting for the parade. He told us that we weren’t to tell anyone that he got soaked waiting to see a mouse!
In later years Gran & Grandad joined the Tinsel and Turkey holidays with a club in Moulton Village. Grandad was known to sneak whiskey down to the bar and would often send Gran back up to the room to fill up the bottle. He was also Chairman of Moulton Bowls and enjoyed his weekly Bowls meetings with Gran as well as a trip to the Isle of Wight for a championship.
Grandad was also a member of RAF Halton Apprentices Association and Stroud Boys Technical School Reunion group. He always looked forward to events and get togethers where I’m sure the old whiskey trick was used as well!
At the age of 17 he had his first motorbike. He would often recall, when he joined the RAF they weren’t allowed motorbikes so Grandad and another Airman stored theirs at a local farm and they would sneak out and go off for a ride. He was honoured to be asked to judge a class at a bike show organised by Michael and told us afterwards that he gave the award to the owner who showed the most passion about their motorbike, not necessarily the best in the class.
Grandad always had a thirst for knowledge and on visits to air museums he would know what each aircraft was and would recall trips on a particular aircraft during his time in the RAF. He enjoyed sitting in the garden watching the various airplanes fly over and he visited the museum at Sywell where he was able to help identify aircraft parts for them.
We were, as a family planning a visit to see the newly refurbished Victor at Duxford – this was his favourite aircraft having served many years on it. He told lots of stories about his travels and adventures in the Victor, landing without wheels was one of his favourites.
We will all miss him greatly. We’ll miss the sound of his voice, the wisdom in his words, his passion and knowledge of aircraft, cars and motorbikes. The pride he had in our family achievements. The values he taught us and the support he gave us all.
 
We’ll miss the dairies he brought us at Christmas – with a note on his birthday “Grandads special birthday – Porsche 911 please”.
 
We’ll miss the stories he told, his sense of humour and jokes. His favourite was trying to catch us grandchildren out every April fool’s day with “there’s a tiger in the garden”.
 
Thank you, Grandad, from all the family.