70 year old wire recordings lead to an extraordinary outcome

The beginning of an amazing story, I began to play back these 11 hours of wire recordings and discovered that they contained a fascinating selection of recordings from a family who lived in Melbourne in the 1950's. Its a great window into their lives at the time. After some research and a fascinating journey of discovery involving one of my viewers we were able to track down the actual descents of these recordings still living in Melbourne unaware of their existence. They had been lost for almost 70 years and now they have been reunited with the voices from their long gone parents and grandparents.

It turns out the wire recorder was owned by Winston Churchill's private pilot, John Adams. During the war years Wing Commander Adams, DFC, AFC was entrusted with the responsibility of ferrying Churchill and members of his Cabinet. He won the DFC in 1940 for his tremendous determination and devotion to duty when he flew in 27 major bombing attacks on targets in Norway, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium and France.… After the war, he was given the opportunity to select his own aircraft and permanent crew, and his job was to fly distinguished people all over the world. Irayna Adams, John wife served the passengers as their hostess. Churchill and his family were frequent passengers and they became friends. When the aircraft was sold in 1951 to ANA (Australian National Airways) the Adams family moved to Australia as part of the sale package. Churchill was godfather to John and Irayna’s son, John Robert Winston who also made a recording on the machine as a teenager in 1968. Enjoy!

Видео 70 year old wire recordings lead to an extraordinary outcome канала Bruce McCole