The title of this post is the name of my maternal grandfather, known to his friends as 'Mac'. He was a tobacconist and newsagent, a quiet, intelligent man who raised his daughter to think for herself and to delight in words and ideas. It is from him that I get my love of language and music.

This being Memorial Day weekend I thought I'd mention him in honor of his service to King and Country. He fought in the RAF as a navigator on a Mosquito nightfighter, escorting bombers on raids against Nazi Germany. For a few months he was acting squadron leader after the man who had held the position was shot down. He never talked about his experiences during the war. When it was all over he returned home to the little apartment above the shop in Southend-on-Sea, and set about the business of raising my mum and uncle.

There can be no doubt that but for the courage and sacrifice of men like Mac, the world would be a much worse place today. I doubt that any are reading this blog, but if you are, thank you.

One of my old aerospace engineering profs had a hand in designing the Mosquito, and I learned an interesting factoid from him; The Mosquito was designed and manufactured under the full pressure of a wartime economy in GB. The aircraft factories were operating at full capacity, subject to the limits of available resources, which were considerable at the time. The mosquito was designed to tap some of the potential capacity of British furniture and cabinet makers and their factories, and to avoid the use of precious (for wartime manufacturing) metals. These were skilled craftsmen, to be sure, but in large part not plane builders. The program was an outstanding success.