OLD friends met for a pint and a catch-up on Saturday when former Royal Air Force servicemen and women revisited one of their old haunts.

The reunion of men and women who served at Shinfield Park from 1950 to 1970 took place at their regular 'local', The Black Boy pub in Shinfield Road, where they relived vivid, and some forgotten, memories of their time in the RAF during the Cold War.

Ron Alexander, who was called up for National Service when he was 17 and served as an RAF policeman during the 1950s, came from Glasgow for the reunion.

Now 80, he said: "I remember being a little nervous when I first went off, but it was what everyone did back then. It made you a man, because suddenly you didn't have your mum to look after you, you just got on with it."

He added: "I remember coming to this pub 60 years ago but you can't recognise Reading really now. A few of us drove up to Blandford Lodge, off Pepper Lane, where we had a camp. But it looks nothing like it did."

Alan Causon, 73, who also served during the 1950s, said: "My most fond memories during my time as an RAF aircraftsman were the in-jokes. There was a lot of messing around and laughing. We were quite a childish generation, we were just teenagers."

One of the youngest of those was Des Orpin, who served at Shinfield Park in the 1960s.

The 62-year-old said: "It was the best time of our lives. We were there during 1967, the summer of love. We used to go to all the pubs and we were there when Reading Festival started. I remember lying in the grass with the Kinks' Lazy Afternoon playing one day and just thinking, 'This is the life'.

"But really, we were there at the heart of the Cold War and I don't know if we all realised the magnitude of that."

Fiona Glasgow, now 65, a clerk at Shinfield Park for two years, had travelled from Australia to meet up with old friends, and said: "I couldn't miss this today."

The reunion, the fourth of its kind, was organised by Janet Dallard, who was based at Shinfield Park but worked at RAF White Walham, near Maidenhead.

Janet used online directory 192.com to research the details of a number of her fellow veterans, and said: "We've managed to track a lot of people down for the reunion but we're still keen for anyone who served at Shinfield Park to get in touch."

Contact Janet on 07739 398764 or visit www 192.com