This new addition arrived a few days ago:
It cost me a pretty penny because of this little addition - Bader's signature:
It now sits on my bookshelf next to this rather unassuming volume which has a personal story attached:
It's a first-edition copy of Bader's biography "Reach for the Sky" by Paul Brickhill:
I first read "Reach for the Sky" at the ripe old age of 13 during a stay in hospital. My book had been a gift from a relative and was old but certainly not a first edition. Fast forward a dozen years and I was serving in the RAF with a secondary duty of being the Mess Secretary at a station where there were two officers' messes. A decision was made to close "my" mess as a cost-saving measure, and so I had a fairly busy time helping the President of the Mess Committee (of the Squadron Leader variety) and the Mess Manager (a former Army Warrant Officer) take care of the multiple tasks required to close the place down - furniture disposals, closing accounts, etc etc.
The mess had a small library that was seldom, if ever, used. At one of our meetings, the Mess Manager asked what he should do with the books. He'd spoken to the other officers' mess, the sergeants' mess and the station library, and none were interested in any of the books. The PMC decided to just throw them away. Being the cheeky chappie that I am, I asked if I could take any of the books that interested me before they were thrown in the bin. The PMC acquiesced to my request...and I duly pocketed the small, rather tatty, first edition copy of "Reach for the Sky."
Inside the book was a pasted library plate which, for me, was a fond reminder of that now-demolished mess, and the many happy times I spent there. It was also interesting to see the small stamp at the bottom of the page associating the book with RAF Nuneham Park, which had been a centre for photographic interpretation during WW2 and continued in that role until the mid-1950s. It seemed probable that my book was added to the library there before it moved to Brampton when the unit relocated once Nuneham Park was handed back to its owners:
Fast forward just a couple of years, and I was an exchange officer in Texas. My position meant we had pretty regular guests to our home, and on one occasion my wife pulled the book off the shelf to show it to a visitor. The hot, dry air of Texas had clearly caused deterioration of the glue that held the library sheet to the page. The small sheet of paper fell out...and revealed this:
Not only was my "free" copy of "Reach for the Sky" a first-edition...it was a signed first-edition with Douglas Bader's signature plainly visible.
It's not often that things like this happen to me...but this was one acquisition that I'll never forget.