Sunday 6th December 2020
The personal story of an RAF Armourer and Engineer from Nuclear Weapons to Bomb Disposal has been written by Mick Haygarth and he’s giving a signed copy away to the RAF community.
Retired Squadron Leader, Mick Haygarth has recently had a book published that covers a period of 38 years of modern RAF history. It details his experiences and memories of visiting 34 countries in the line of duty, working with the Royal Navy, the Army and numerous other nations. It is written from the perspective of a Weapons tradesman and Aircraft Engineering Officer who went on to become one of the RAF’s senior Bomb Disposal specialists.
Enter the prize draw
To win Mick’s signed copy, simply email [email protected] putting ‘Book review prize’ in the subject box by 30 June 2020. The draw will take place on 1 July and after that everyone’s details will be deleted in line with our privacy policy.
Mick Haygarth left home a few weeks before his seventeenth birthday to join the Royal Air Force as a Weapons Technician. At the time, everything seemed very normal and routine, but his 38-year career turned out to be anything but. From training with other nations all over the world; fast roping out of helicopters with US Army Rangers; being driven around Basra in the back of a beaten-up taxi wearing civilian clothes with a 9mm pistol stuck in his waistband, to convoying at speed around Baghdad with the United States Army looking for unexploded bombs. All of these events were extraordinary and way beyond the usual experiences of an RAF Engineer.
Mick shares about his inspiration to write:
“Having left the RAF just short of my 55th birthday I reflected on my career and realised that I had quite a story to tell. I began to retrospectively write a journal of my time in the RAF and quickly concluded that my career had been fairly exceptional and so I set about putting in more detail to see if there was enough content to make it a worthwhile book manuscript. Publishers, Pen and Sword subsequently took on my content which was then released in November 2019.
“During the final editing process for the book the RAF announced that it would be getting rid of its Bomb Disposal capability in April 2020. So I made a last-minute addition pay a tribute to the capability that had shaped my career, and with the publisher’s agreement the book also includes an epilogue to RAF Bomb Disposal and 5131(BD) Squadron.”
The book is available now in Hardback, e-book and Kindle from Pen and Sword Books, as well as Amazon and Waterstones.
