One of the people who’s added so much to the story of Flt Lt John Harder has been his “co-conspirator” & joint member of the wartime “John & Tony mutual appreciation society”: Flt Lt Tony Cooper.
I’ve met Tony on 3 occasions, since being introduced to him by email, at his home in Lowestoft and each one has been an absolute joy, sharing his time & memories with me. On the last visit, with my daughter Rachael who, for her university course, needed to interview someone who had served during WW2, he was most generous with his time & despite being “interviewed out” following the John Sergeant documentary on the Spitfire, took the time to answer Rachael’s questions in detail.
Tony is a fantastic guy, with a “twinkle” in his eye and still with fond memories of the time that he spent in 64 Squadron with John, and afterwards as firm, post-war, friends.
In his house are many memories of his wartime career, including various scale models of one of his personal Spitfire’s, SH-B number MK805, named Peter John III after his son (this was the third Spitfire to bear Peter’s name, hence the “III”).
Recently, however, someone who lives near to Tony has gone one better with a “lifesized” model! It’s taken Terry Arlow 28 years to build his replica Spitfire from a mix of salvaged parts and ones fabricated from new.
When the Spitfire was ready, who better to invite round to inspect it, but Tony?
I was aware of this happening, but a few days ago, the following article was published in “The Mail – Online” (from which the photos are taken) which I thought might be of interest…
There’s also a BBC report from two years ago… http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-12583046
The website where you can read more about this is: http://www.simplyspitfire.com/
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