Leslie Bonnet

Group Captain Leslie Bonnet (22 August 1902 – 10 December 1985) was a Royal Air Force officer, short-story writer and duck-breeder, the creator of the Honey Campbell breed of duck, later known as the Welsh Harlequin.

Early life Bonnet was born 1902 in Watford, Hertfordshire, England. His father was a bank manager in London's Chancery Lane; his mother was one of the Dudleys, a Staffordshire farming family He succeeded in winning a scholarship to Watford Boys Grammar School, from where he proceeded to St Catharine's College, Cambridge University, in 1920. He studied English and Law, obtaining a double first in 1923.

In the depressed 1920s, graduates were a glut on the market and he took a job selling "Watford" chocolates in Norfolk. Under his editorship, it became "a lively, absorbing journal of 200 sleek pages...packed with banking lore, poetry, literary articles, short stories and urbane correspondence, eagerly awaited and read by bankers all over the world." During this period, he also published the Honorary Secretary's Guide (1938).

In 1938 he joined the Balloon Barrage, the only military service opened to someone at his advanced age. On 1 May 1939 he left the Bank and was appointed an acting pilot officer, second in command of E flight of 908 Squadron, Bethnal Green, one of the ten squadrons of barrage balloons in 30 Group of Balloon Command. He was quickly promoted to Flying Officer and then Flight Lieutenant.

War years In late autumn of 1939, Bonnet was posted to 30 Group Headquarters in Charlotte near the Middlesex Hospital as one of three Squadron Leader Operations Officers who operated the Balloons and next to 902 Squadron, Blackheath. Late in 1940, he was posted as second in command to 905, the West End Squadron. His next posting was to RAF Bomber Command, Cottesmore, as adjutant. He returned to 30 Group, which was at this time based in Chessington, in 1941. By this time he was Squadron Leader Air, with responsibility for balloon operations, under Wing Commander Barnes. He was given responsibility for the 450 London balloons, for the movement of the numerous extra squadrons of them that they were assembling and seconding overseas; and for the planning and siting of any new barrages that were established at home. Another responsibility was the Channel Convoy; each ship in the convoy flew a balloon from its stern.

In 1942, he was abruptly sent to the RAF Staff College in Gerrards Cross as a student, where he finished top of his class. At the beginning of 1943, he was posted to Stradishall Bomber Base in Suffolk as a Wing Commander where he spent 5 months as the administrative second in command. At this time, he divorced his first wife, Getrude Olive May, and married Joan Hutt, whom he had originally met when she exhibited at the Bank of England.

Chinese mission Later in 1943, he was asked by Group Captain "Daddy" Dawes (Head of Officers Postings at Bomber Command) and Air Marshal Saundby to be part of an RAF Training Mission to RAF Chengtu in China under Air Vice Marshal Pattinson. The aim of the mission was to train the Chinese Air Force to operate as an independent service, rather than a branch of the Army as previously. Unofficially, the Chinese invited the British to counteract the influence of the Americans, who were establishing themselves in China in strength. Bonnet worked hard to improve the administration of the service – when he arrived, he found that their filing system consisted of only one file entitled "General Matters". He learnt Chinese and became a great enthusiast for traditional Chinese drama. "At first the Chinese gave him the name 'Pa-nai' (the industrious professor) but soon this was changed to 'Pa-na-ta' (he who is susceptible to every moral influence)" as well as books such as Chinese Fairy Tales (1958). The children's book The Terrible Nung Guama (1978) was a retelling of one of his stories. He also acted for a time as area representative of a large unit trust company He was described in his obituary as a "countryman...rubicund, well-fleshed but never flabby, and abounding with energy".