Blair's Blog

Funny thing about that 15 minutes of fame, it seems that you don’t get much say regarding when that 15 minutes is!

Peter Mansbridge did show up at the Aero Space Museum on Thursday, but first thing his crew told Brenda was that they were cutting her from the interview. At least they were still able to interview the WWII veteran, Les Greig, who had come out from Vancouver in hopes of having a chance to meet the Duchess of Cambridge. Les had been a flying instructor at #37 SFTS during the time the Duchess’s grandfather, Peter Middleton, was a flight commander at the training school. They worked together for a significant period of time. Les’s interview was broadcast on the National on 7 July. Les flew to Calgary on Wednesday, hoping to be able to meet the Duchess and give her a few old photos of her grandfather.

Les (and many others) had hoped that the Duke and Duchess might make a short visit to the Aero Space Museum as part of the private itinerary just to see where Kate’s grandfather had served for a good portion of WWII. As it turned out, no such stop occurred – which was a bit of a shame for Les. Even so, there were a few of us around who had a great opportunity to hear some of the stories and recollections that Les shared about his time in Calgary during the war, as well as his operational time in Lancaster bombers as a Pathfinder. In fact, on Friday at lunchtime as the royal motorcade went driving right past the museum, Brenda and I and the kids were having lunch with Les and another veteran. That was an historical occasion – maybe not with the same flashiness as meeting royalty, but one which is plenty rare enough 66 years after the end of WWII.

Brenda joked that it isn’t just the white hats that make Will and Kate ‘official’ Calgarians, but they too, like most Calgarians, have “driven by the Aero Space Museum, but just never took the time to stop in”!

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