Papers of A.F. Gray

Typescript memoirs of A.F. Gray detailing his work as a Meteorological Officer in Northern Rhodesia / Zambia from 1951 to 1971.

A.F. Gray was born in Bedford on the 20 February 1925 and educated at Bedford Modern School. In 1941 he joined the Air Ministry Meteorological Office as an assistant before joining the RAF in 1942. After being demobbed as a Corporal in 1947, he returned to the Meteorological Office as a civilian Meteorological Assistant. In circa 1948, after a period as a Junior Instructor at the Meteorological Office Training School, he was posted to Bournemouth Airport as Assistant-in-Charge and then, in mid 1948, was posted to Heathrow Airport in London.

In 1950 he joined the new Northern Rhodesia Meteorological Department and served in various locations including as Officer-in-Charge in Ndola from 1964 to 1971. He also took part in the Inquiry into the 1961 crash of the Swedish DC6 which killed, amongst others, the United Nations Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskljd.

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Collection level description created by Marion Lowman, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House.

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