On Tuesday 29 April 2025 at 12pm, Mark Aedy will consider the life and legacy of his father, Squadron Leader Ken Aedy. This lecture will be hosted virtually via Crowdcast and livestreamed from the RAF Museum's London site.

Ken Aedy served in the RAF from 1942 to 1973. He had his medical in the Long Room at Lords. Having been taught to fly in Tiger Moths in Oklahoma in 1943, he was operational in the Second World War piloting Lancasters, including Operation Manna, the dropping of food supplies to the starving Dutch, and returning Prisoners of War back to the UK. He was still 20 years old when the war finished.

He remained in the RAF, serving in Egypt at the time of Israel’s independence in 1948; and in Singapore, where in 1952 he met and married Jane, who was working for the Security Service. He flew in the inaugural Battle of Britain fly-past and participated in the Berlin airlift. He transitioned on to fast jets including the Meteor in Germany and his favourite, the Javelin. He subsequently worked in Intelligence in RAF Episkopi, Cyprus in the mid/late 1960s. On the way, he saw General MacArthur in Tokyo; met the King and Queen of Siam in Bangkok and danced with Rita Heyworth!

Having retired in 1973, partly through ill-health, he was beleaguered until he finally faded away in 2001. Unbeknown to his family, he had written his memoirs of his life in the Royal Air Force, to which he was devoted. His love of flying covered a period of rapid technological change and geo-political uncertainty.

His daughter, Penny, and son, Mark, vowed to publish the memoirs, remaining faithful to their father’s narrative but adding photos, illustrations, maps and context to the events he witnessed.

Mark is a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University and a Non-Executive Director of British Land PLC. He was the Senior Independent Director at the Royal Marsden, the leading cancer hospital, for 7 years and he acted as a Trustee at The HALO Trust, the global de-mining charity, for six years, where he remains an Ambassador. He is Chairman of EMEA & APAC for Moelis & Company, the global independent investment bank.

Lunchtime Lecture (London): From Biplanes to Fast Jets: The Life of Ken Aedy