FLGOFF Roger Bush
No. 453 Squadron RAAF Engineer Officer
Roger Bush was the 453 Squadron Engineer Officer who built William Brambleberry’s Spitfire in ‘The Adventures of William Brambleberry: Aviator Mouse.’ In real life, he was also rather an interesting character.
Roger was born in England in 1918. His family migrated to Sydney NSW the next year. Roger was the eldest of four siblings; two brothers, and a sister. When WWII broke out, Roger enlisted in the RAF and joined 453 Squadron in England as an Engineer Officer, where he was responsible for the maintenance and serviceability of the 453 Squadron Spitfires.
I have not been able to find out much about his service but he does have a Wikipedia entry, which reveals that he met his wife while he was in England and she came back to Australia with him. They had two children, Peter and Lesley.
Roger worked at BHP in Woolongong before he was ordained as a minister with the Australian Methodist Church. During his time as a minister, the Wikipedia articles states that,
He became an early talkback radio minister on Connections, a three-hour talkback program he devised and hosted on 2CH. Bush wrote a column for the Sydney Sun newspaper for 12 years. From the opening of the Sydney Opera House in 1973 he was responsible for the Christmas program of celebrations.
He received several honours such as:
Officer – Order of the British Empire 1981 for service to the community
Member – Order of the British Empire 1973 for service to the community
He also published several books including:
The Open Line Bedside Book – (Sydney, 1984)
The Origins of Christmas: Fact, Fiction and Myth – Reed Publishing (Sydney, 1982)
The Origins of Easter: Fact, Fiction and Myth – Reed Publishing (Sydney, 1982)
A Bush Christmas – Rigby (Sydney, 1980)
All the trees were green – Rigby (Adelaide, 1979)
Prayers for Pagans – Hodder & Stoughton (Sydney, 1968)
If anyone has any information about Roger’s service history, I would very much love to receive it and I will update this entry accordingly.
Article from The Canberra Times, Friday 21 August 1964, p. 12
The Reverend Roger Bush, compere of the weekly radio programme ‘In Between,’ will visit Canberra at the weekend. While in Canberra, Mr. Bush will speak to a number of church groups and will contact Canberra listeners to his programme who have written to him. He will also record interviews with young people for the programme.
The youth groups will meet Mr. Bush at the National Memorial Methodist Church Fellowship Centre tonight. This meeting had been arranged by the Youth Committee of the Canberra Council of Churches.
In Between, presents discussions with teenagers ranging in topic from Sydney beaches to university colleges.