A pledge made two years ago has been fulfilled with the return to Pembroke Dock of Australian visitor Vivienne Creighton.

 

Vivienne, from Sydney, New South Wales, first visited ‘PD’ in November 2009 and was delighted to discover the new Flying Boat Centre.

 

“I was the 3,000th visitor to the Centre which had only been open a few months,” said Vivienne. “I promised to return and exactly two years later I am back and delighted to find that the Centre has had 20,000 visitors to date.”

 

Vivienne is following in the wartime trail of her late husband, John, who was a navigator on Sunderland flying boats with the famous 461 Australian Squadron. This time she spent three days in the town, meeting up again with friends from the Pembroke Dock Sunderland Trust which runs the Flying Boat Centre.

 

Another highlight for Vivienne was to hear the Pembroke and District Male Voice Choir perform at a concert at the local Golf Club, and she also was taken on a whistle stop tour of many parts of Pembrokeshire courtesy of newly made friends Sue and Leigh Border, of Pembroke Dock.

 

“It is marvellous to see what progress has been made, in addition to the large number of visitors,” she added. “My husband had such happy memories of Pembroke Dock and its people and, all these years on, I am experiencing the same welcome here. It is like my second home.”

 

In New South Wales Vivienne has linked up with others who have flying boat connections and has helped raised funds for the Sunderland Trust and its heritage projects. She brought with her donations raised through the efforts of Anne Flaherty and family, other recent visitors to ‘PD’.

 

Caption:

Vivienne Creighton, from Sydney, Australia, shows a photograph of her husband’s wartime 461 Squadron which is displayed at the Flying Boat Centre, Pembroke Dock. With her are, left to right, Centre Volunteers Malcolm Miles, Pam Maynard and Baz Clark.