Chris Jobling passed on the sad news to Steve Tolley, now in Malaysia, who had this to say: "I first met Chris Crane at OCTU Henlow on the evening of 26 Nov 1978. He stood out as the confident, devil-may-care guy that put the rest of us lesser mortals at ease in a very unusual place and time of all of our lives.
Chris was definitely different; his legs seemed to have more joints than is regular in humans, and for his style of marching was awarded the nickname of ;Crazylegs Crane'.
His skill at arms was renown - when we all had our first play with 'the officers weapon', that cheap piece of tubing laughingly known as the SMG (short machine gun, or 'Smudge'), we were taught the art of one-oh-one, that is one, finger presses the trigger, count 'oh' (zero) then one, let go of the trigger. This was the accepted way of sending only a few bullets out the front of the weapon at any time. Chris' attempt somehow went straight into full rock & roll, with the gun stuttering away in his hands, and the last 5 or so bullets spinning off into space.
Another memory is when we were in the same flight (A Flight) on tactical camp; to say Chris was bloodthirsty would always be wrong, but when it came down to him or the enemy, then the enemy had better watch out. We (Chris, Steve Thomas & I were at the rear of our patrol when we saw, and were taken under fire by an enemy patrol. we were all a little mad in those days, but without any hesitation, Chris led we 3 on a charge over a very deep bog/swamp straight at the other force, which was about 14 strong!
After graduation, I next met Chris at RAF West Drayton on our professional training. Number 115 Fighter Control Course was a course of 10, but only 2 of us passed out as Intercept controllers. Chris, I think was having too much fun to work hard. He gleefully showed a written debrief of one of his training sorties which ran along the lines of "the results of this sortie were entirely due to your hangover". Also, he became the course hero for his time (and girlfriend) management, On one weekend, he waved goodbye to his girlfriend at one platform of West Drayton railway station, calmly walked under the lines in the tunnel to the next platform, and welcomed the (next) girlfriend off the very next train. Total time duration, less than 5 minutes!
it was at this time that he met the girl who was to become his first wife; Lynne was a Nurse at RAF Halton, and they had a very spectacular wedding and reception at the Rothschild mansion of RAF Halton Officers' Mess. I had the honour to be his best man, and knowing the man, had a taxi waiting outside the church during the ceremony in case he changed his mind at the last moment ' if you see a tall bloke running like hell from the church, pick him up and take him to the railway station; if you see a happy couple, keep the tenner and drive off slowly' - that was the brief to the driver.
Chris then went off to be a rocket-jockey, in charge of a section of Bloodhound Long-range Surface to Air Missiles at RAF North Coates After a short time, I was eyeball deep in very smelly air-force guano, and had just been told things were looking very bad for me. The Station Commander at RAF Binbrook must have called Chris, because the next thing I knew, he drove up to the mess and took me home to North Coates for the weekend; it's hard to ponder over your troubles when you are roaring drunk and roaring with laughter. it's a measure of his humanity that he did this for several weekends until things improved for me. He acted as friend, advocate and bodyguard; woe betide anyone who tried to make fun of me or give me a hard time.
After that, we both went our separate ways, until we met up again at RAF Neatishead, where we spent many happy hours and other nights either at the mess or at his house, or the local hostelry. In amongst being a hard-working professional, a great husband and father, he also found time to be the life and soul of the village pub; it was like a scene from cheers - everybody knew his name (and he theirs).
After that, I regret we rather lost touch with each other, so the sense of loss is doubly keen.
Chris Crane was a man who lived life to the full, was a great friend to one and all, and a very great friend to me. the world is now a darker and more dour place for his passing.
Steve Tolley Penang, Malaysia" He also passed on a photo, which I've attached.
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