John nears end as mayor of town

0 - 0 • Published 5 Mar 2009 12:30

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FORMER St Stephen"s High School pupil John Morgan is reaching the end of a two-year term as mayor of Fairford in Gloucestershire.

John, 43, left Port Glasgow in 1982 to join the RAF as an aircraft engineer and his duties have taken him to more than 60 countries.

On returning from an overseas tour in 1990 he was posted to RAF Brize Norton and moved to the Gloucestershire market town of Fairford for four years.

After a further overseas tour he returned to Fairford with his wife Carol and their son Jack. Carol is originally from Cheshire and the couple met when both were serving with the RAF in Germany.

John told me: 'My position as an Aircraft Ground Engineer is very specialised. I fly on the RAF"s wide-bodied and air-to-air refuelling aircraft, the Tristars of 216 Squadron.

'Because of the extensive training involved, I have been lucky to have remained on the squadron for such a long time.

'I have a reasonable amount of time off when not required to fly and thought I would put my spare time to good use by joining the council in 2004.'

He was chair of the planning committee, then deputy mayor, before being elected mayor in 2007.

John said: 'It has been hard work, especially during the horrendous flooding in July 2007.

'It has also been very rewarding. We have recently completed a £1.3 million renovation of our local community centre and I was honoured to have welcomed the Queen to the town as part of the RAF"s 90th anniversary celebrations in 2008.

'Fairford is fairly small compared with the Port, but we are pretty well known for the International Air Tattoo, the world"s largest air show, which can bring in 250,000 people over a weekend in July.

'There"s always plenty of work to be done, but for the next six weeks I"ll have to hand on much of the load as I am heading off on deployment to our base in Oman in the Middle East. I should be back just in time to hand over the reins in May.'

John"s parents still live in Port Glasgow - his father John in King Street and mother Margaret in Bouverie Street.

Margaret said of her son: 'I"m really proud of all his achievements, He has had a fantastic career in the RAF and is highly-respected in his local community.'

John"s sister, Kathleen, moved to California in 1983 and became an American citizen in 2008.

This article appeared in Greenock Telegraph 05 Mar 09

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