STANLEY APLING (4.5.1899 - 24.11.97)

Born in Manor Park (now in the London Borough of Newham, but then in Essex), his parents moved when he was five to a new house in Ilford. He was the eldest of three boys and two girls, and is survived by his younger sister, who earlier this year joined him at Lincoln House Nursing Home, and his youngest brother who lives, with his wife, in Exmouth.

His family took him to Norfolk to visit an Aunt in Hingham in 1908, and hardly a year in his life past without some time spent in Norfolk. Then in 1913 his father took him on a short trip to Paris and from then on Norfolk and France were his two favourite places for holiday recreation.

Stanley's father was a Solicitor's Managing Clerk and his mother was an accomplished pianist who often accompanied singers at the People's Palace in Bow, and taught him to play the pianoforte and gave him a love of music. When he left school he preferred Insurance to the Law and in due time he came a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute, and found that his interest in things French - and knowledge of the language - became a major factor in his first promotion - which led to him becoming head of a small department at the Eagle Star.

He joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1917 and learned to fly on a French Caudron "string and sealing-wax" monoplane and joined a squadron equipped with Sopwith "Pups" protecting London from Zeppelin raids. It was while in the RFC he met his future wife Nancy Brown, whose father was farm bailiff of a group of farms in Ilford - all now under bricks and mortar. They celebrated their Diamond Wedding in 1984, proudly receiving a telegram of congratulations from the Queen, but Nancy died in 1986. They leave a son and daughter, a grandson and grand-daughter and five great-grandchildren.

Nancy and Stanley spent most of their married life in Ilford, but moved a few years before Stanley's retirement to the village of Chilworth, just south of Guildford, where Stanley's younger sister was headmistress of the local (church) school.

Stanley's recreational interests were photography, gardening, music and travel - not necessarily in that order.

His interest in photography was stimulated by an uncle giving him a camera in 1910 - and he was inveterate photographer of family affairs and travel scenes for over 70 years. His collection of nearly 4,000 photographs in an archive of history of the century.

He had but three different gardens in his life - two in Ilford, and one in Chilworth - but all were on "virgin soil" - though the second one, at Barkingside (backing on Dr Barnardo's Village Home for Girls) had to be created twice as the house and garden were completely destroyed by a V2 in 1945 and Stanley and Nancy, after some years in a requisitioned house elsewhere in Ilford, were restored to a rebuilt house at the same address in 1949, where the garden had to be recreated out of the mess left by rubble and builders. He also had another problem when he moved to Chilworth - finding that the lower end of the garden contained the remains of one of the buildings of the gunpowder factory which had existed in Chilworth in the 18th century.

Music consisted in the occasional rendition of his party piece "The Murmuring Stream" and a few other pieces on the piano in the "drawing room" until it was destroyed by the V2, but more by the collecting and playing of gramophone records - the selection from each month's latest issues being made always from the same friendly record dealer. Many of the records survived the bombing, protected by a chimney wall which remained standing, and continued to entertain him until very recently.

Travel was a major interest. Post-war holidays were concentrated on France and Switzerland, with Stanley spending a high proportion of winter evenings in planning - and the joint expedition recorded photographically by Stanley in prints and by Nancy in slides. But, probably the expedition which made the greatest impression on them was their visit to Canada in 1975 to visit the family of their grandson, then working for Noranda Company at Manatouwadge in the outback of Northern Ontario, and visited Nancy's cousins farming in Alberta.

In retirement, Stanley proved a tower of strength as one of the Governors of the Chilworth Church School and his sister insists on saying she would not have survived without his help. He was always the organiser - show him someone feeling oppressed by a muddle and Stanley would say "Let us sit down and consider" - and the way forward would soon be clear.

He seems to have made a lasting impression in Lincoln House Nursing Home where he spent the last three years of his life and where he was regarded as a wonderful old gentleman - with a wealth of memories with which he could entertain others for hours - and many of which he has recorded in "A Slipper'd Pantaloons Memoirs" shortly to be published privately.

While at Lincoln House he had two flights from Shipdham aerodrome (on 20th October 1993 and then on his 97th birthday - 4th May 1996) and on both occasions was intrigued to find himself figuring in news items in the Eastern Daily Press.