St Paul\u2019s \u2013 My Story<\/p>\n
All of our alumni have a tale to tell, but in his 90th birthday year, John H Evans will be reliving his memories in his latest book which is due out in time for Christmas.<\/p>\n
Having completed his National Service in the Royal Airforce, John\u2019s mother suggested a career in teaching. John was successful in his application for a place at St Paul\u2019s College in Cheltenham, an outstanding institution for the training of male teachers. After five years of successful teaching John resigned and began his training as an airline pilot.<\/p>\n
John\u2019s adventurous spirit led him to take to the skies as a commercial pilot, a career which has led him around the world, with passengers including Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. His entrepreneurial spirit and energy led him to start four UK regional airlines and operate a fifth as Chief Executive in Grenada, Caribbean.<\/p>\n
It is all a far cry from his childhood in a village growing up in the valleys of the Rhondda, in Wales. Memories of a bomber pilot from the same village, who went missing later in the war, inspired him to fly, with the search for his childhood hero taking him far and wide.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve lived and flown all over the world and had many adventures. It wasn\u2019t what I had set out to do when I first came to Cheltenham, but it\u2019s where I ended up, and I wanted to put it all in a book.\u201d Only Angels Have Wings chronicles his story which was published in 2011. John has a passion for putting pen to paper, and still writes his books in longhand.<\/p>\n
His incredible journey continues, with a second book, \u201cWe Sang and Whistled Then\u201d, which will be published this winter. \u201cIn my youth our gang of boys left the cinema (we called it the pictures then) and would break into song with \u2018Don\u2019t Fence Me In\u2019 or similar. If any of us forgot the words we would whistle, hence the title of my new book.\u201d The book is about the golden age of popular music (1925-1955), with an introduction by Michael Bagshaw, Professor of Aviation Medicine at King\u2019s College, London.<\/p>\n
During John\u2019s flying career he became a British Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Examiner and as a consequence, he was able to test professional pilots as well as train others to fly. So, teaching has always remained a fundamental part of John\u2019s story. In his preface, Professor Bagshaw writes, \u201cMany scholarly books and articles have been written about the 1939-1945 second world war, describing and discussing the politics and the battles and the eventual outcomes. But this is the first book to be published which seamlessly intertwines both themes, each enhancing the understanding of the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
John added: \u201cWriting the books is something I\u2019ve enjoyed very much and has brought back so many memories of the people, places and music which have played a part in my life. It\u2019s all a long time ago now of course, but I have fond memories of the college, and even though I didn\u2019t continue to teach, it is an important part of my story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Note: St Paul\u2019s College, which is now Francis Close Hall, was a predecessor of the University of Gloucestershire, and along with St Mary\u2019s \u2013 based at The Park \u2013 was a leading provider of teacher training.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":129000001349,"template":"","tags":[92,145,653,401],"cs_subjects":[],"cs_levels_of_Study":[],"schools":[],"class_list":["post-31422","case_study","type-case_study","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-alumni","tag-graduate","tag-john-h-evans","tag-teaching"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glos.ac.uk\/courses\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/case_study\/31422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glos.ac.uk\/courses\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/case_study"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glos.ac.uk\/courses\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/case_study"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glos.ac.uk\/courses\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glos.ac.uk\/courses\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glos.ac.uk\/courses\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glos.ac.uk\/courses\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31422"},{"taxonomy":"cs_subjects","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glos.ac.uk\/courses\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cs_subjects?post=31422"},{"taxonomy":"cs_levels_of_Study","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glos.ac.uk\/courses\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cs_levels_of_Study?post=31422"},{"taxonomy":"schools","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glos.ac.uk\/courses\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/schools?post=31422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}