He played an important role in making sure people can enjoy this vital naval historical asset.

Terry was appointed to the role as manager and senior curator in August 2006.

However, the time is right and Terry has decided to retire.

The South Coast Register’s Damian McGill recently had the chance to sit down with Terry and talk about his time at the museum and why it was important to preserve military history.

In a lead up to Terry’s appointment in August 2006 the management of the Museum of Flight (as it was known by at the time) had been in negotiation with the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) for them to take over the responsibility of the facility.

Volunteers like Neil Ralph had stepped up to keep the museum going.

“He (Neil Ralph) did a fabulous job and gave so much of his time and energy because financially the museum at the time was doing very poorly,” Terry said.

“Neil took over the role as director on a volunteer basis.”

Terry was on the museum’s board of management at the time.

“We knew the museum needed an injection of support from Defence and from the Commonwealth to survive,” he said.

The timing was good as Defence had just taken over another museum in Sydney and had appointed a Director of Naval Heritage who managed the process.

The director then got involved with the local museum’s transition from private to back into the heritage collection.

Job advertisements were put out for four public service staff and Terry, even though he had years of experience with the museum, still had to apply for the job.

“I was lucky enough to be chosen as manager and senior curator,” he said.

Terry came into the job with a plan in mind.

“I wanted to re-establish it as the Navy's museum because it had become the Museum of Flight and it had a combination and mixture of naval and civilian aeroplanes,” he said.

“There were aeroplanes from other forces that had no relevance or connection to the Royal Australian Navy or with the fleet air arm.

“It was originally established as the Fleet Air Arm Museum and I wanted to return it back to its true origin and roots.”

So are people coming into the museum?

“The numbers we get through now range between 16,000 to 20,000 annually and that is good in comparison to other organisations around the place,” Terry said

One day, during the recent school holidays, more than 300 people toured the museum.

Terry said they do a lot of advertising in various forms.

Getting people through the door is just one of the museum’s purposes.

“The museum is more than just an attraction for visitors. Its role is to collect, conserve and preserve heritage, in our case, of the RAN’s Fleet Air Arm and naval aviation going back to 1917,” Terry said

He said if they didn’t protect this heritage it would be lost and the aircraft would rust away.

Terry said it was important to recognise the efforts made by then Captain Andrew Robertson ( AO, DSC, CDRE) in 1974.

“He (Andrew Robertson) was not from an aviation background, he was a seaman officer, and he had to foresight to see there were various aeroplanes sitting in locations all around HMAS Albatross and he said ‘let’s create a museum’,” Terry said.

“So he really is the person we can give credit to for the establishment of the museum and he still keeps in contact this day.”

Terry often crossed paths with Andrew Robertson.

“He used to often make the odd phone call and say ‘how are things going Terry?’,” Terry said.

“I found this to be the most satisfying job I had in my 53-year career in aviation and the commercial world,” he said.

He loved how the job allowed him to interact with people.

“One of the other aspects of having the museum is that it should appeal to the people in the service and they should see it as their museum,” he said

“They should see it as something that gives them pride and something they are proud to bring their parents, families and friends into see.

“A  lot of people have maintained, flown or supported a lot of the craft in the museum in some way.”

Terry, before his museum appointment, had two years off work with a serious cancer diagnosis and then a great job opportunity arrived.

“At that time my wife Colleen said ‘why do you want to go back to work? She added you have had this health scare and had a good career so far - so just retire,” he said.

“As I recuperated I still had dealings with the board of the museum of flight and still active even though I was not working and it just sort of duck-tailed together.

“I was better, the position was offered and so I said ‘let’s see what happens’.”

Terry said his health did not suffer after he took the job.

However, six weeks into the job he did have a recurrence of his cancer and went to hospital for further surgery and treatment.

Terry said while he was getting better he had to rely on the other staff members who were also new to their roles.

“They really did all the manual work - the hard slog to transition from the old museum to the new,” he said.

He bounced back in May 2007 when the museum was reopened and dedicated.

“The configuration we have now is essentially what we developed in that five or six month period from September 2006 until the opening in May 2007,” he said.

Terry thinks he leaves museum stronger than it was when he took over.

“A lot of the credit goes to the team that I have had in that time,” he said.

Team/staff members include the other public servants appointed the same time he was, the two curators, an administrative support person and all the volunteers.

Terry said the museum still had many great volunteers.

He can remember what the museum was like going right back to its early days.

The museum had various stages of development and it could only develop and progress as funding was available.

As the board raised the money they added on a new section.

“Initially there was a roof, a floor, no walls and all the aeroplanes were just parked down either side which was back in the mid-1990s when the building first went up (stage one),” he said.

Stage two was to put the walls, reception and the shop in.

Airshows raised money for the museum, it had corporate support and annual financial grants from Shoalhaven City Council.

Terry wants the generosity of the people who have come and been associated with the museum during his time to be acknowledged.

“I would like to thank the families of veterans with their generous support and the generous donations,” he said.

He said the donations tell a great deal of the history of naval aviation.

Over years many people have donated items to the museum and many have great stories to tell.

One of the most amazing is about a precious find at a rubbish dump in a Southern Queensland town called Texas.

A brown leather Gladstone bag containing the property of Australia's greatest fighter ace, Captain Robert Alexander (Alec) Little, was left at the tip.

Captain Alexander was an Australian who had gone in England in World War One, learnt to fly and then joined the Royal Naval Air Service in 1916.

“He went on to become the highest scoring Australian flying ace of any conflict,” Terry said.

Captain Alexander was originally from Melbourne was shot down and killed in May 1918.

How his belongings ended up on a dump is a mystery.

“The only assumption we can make is that his flying kit was taken by another member of the squadron who was an Australian and happened to live in Queensland,” Terry said.

The person who found this treasure had a connection with the museum.

One of the things inside the bag was Captain Alexander’s flying helmet which had something special concealed in its lining.

Inside was an 1884 gold sovereign, with the photograph of a baby folded around it, and the inscription 'With love Vera' on the back.

Terry recently turned 70-years-of-age and he took on the job when he was 57-years-age.

He has other things he wants to do in life and lot of these things are still involved in aviation, museums and with aircraft collections.

He will give his time as a volunteer at the museum and will be happy to guide people around the facility.

The Hetheringtons plan to still live in Nowra.

Terry said nobody was irreplaceable and added the process for getting a replacement had started.

The final selection process is taking place and he expects his replacement would be appointed by early March.