Past President of the Royal Institute of Navigation, Brian Calvert, was born in 1933 at Hankow on the Yangste in China (where his family was later interned by the Japanese during the Second World War) and educated at Stowe School, Buckinghamshire. He joined BOAC (now part of British Airways) in 1957, after National Service in the Fleet Air Arm. For his first two years with the airline he flew as a navigator, and this led to a lifelong interest in the subject.