Stan Leeds

It is with great sadness that I have to tell you of the passing of Stan Leeds.

Stan passed away in the early hours of Saturday 1st November at Russells Hall hospital. He had a leg amputation & went into septic shock & never regained consciousness. 

He was a very well known member of the Photographic Trade and had been a member of the RAF Association for many years along with his wife Yvonne.

Regards

Gerry Linstead

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I think many members will not know much about Stan and his time in the Service, so this is a personal view of him.

Stan joined as a member of the 30th entry in early 1957. During his time as a Boy Entrant, he rose to become the Flight Sergeant Boy of the entry and, in that position, would have taken the passing out parade, quite an honour.

I am not sure of his first posting, but we next met at RAF Innsworth in February 1960 en route to Singapore on SS Nevassa, a three-week journey, and it was during this time I got to know him as our backgrounds were similar before joining up.

On arrival, we found that Stan, Maurice Cooper and I would be joining 81 Squadron at Tengah. We moved into Gibson Block, where there were quite a few lads we knew, mainly ex-boys, so we were made welcome. The next morning was spent finding our way around the station, then making our way to the Photo Section. At that point, Maurice was told he would be working on the aircraft with Stan and me in the processing section.

During the next two and a half years, we all moved around between the two jobs at Tengah, plus two detachments to RAAF Butterworth to support the Valiants of 543 Squadron who were carrying out the Siam survey.

Our task was to process and print the films from the F49 cameras, and on each occasion, we put in many hours. Operating out of ancient MFPU trailers was quite an experience, and we did enjoy it. Stan was promoted during this time, but I’m not sure when.

One of our pastimes was skin diving, and we visited Blakamti Island and the Sister Isles quite a few times. The visibility varied, so some trips were more interesting than others. We heard of an island off the Malayan coast that had been visited by a lad called Bill Reeves, and after pestering for some time, he agreed to take us there. I wrote a write-up about this some time ago for Flashback, so I will not go into detail about the time we spent there. This was the highlight of our tour, really and at a later date we took two more of our crowd, so it was something we often talked about.

When we returned to the UK, I visited Stan in Cardiff and met his family, then he came up to Liverpool to meet mine. During conversations at Tengah, we did talk about our folks, so it was nice to put faces to the names. After this, we lost touch for about 6-7 years, then met up at Cosford and picked up where we left off. This happened a few times over the years, but each time we did meet, it was just a natural thing to carry on.

In the late ’70s, I became an instructor, and for once, we were at the same station for a couple of years. We have always been in touch since then, met at reunions over the years, and on my visits to UK since we moved to Spain. Since Sue started dialysis, it was difficult to travel, so it’s been phone calls, and I spoke to Stan about 6-7 days before we lost him. Sue could hear him and was surprised how cheerful he sounded, as I had told her how ill he was. In all the recent chats, he has been full of life and never complained once. Quite a character, and I will miss him. Ian Evans