John Macdonald was introduced to the collecting of militaria by his father while still a young boy. After over thirty years, this habit developed into a passion. Some time ago, ever eager to expand on his collection, John sought a new challenge and decided to put together a display of World War II Commonwealth Air Force cap and aircrew badges. This seemingly simple task was to take John down the path which eventually led to the writing of "Shades of Blue."In all his previous experience, John had found that there existed a diverse library of reference material detailing a wide range of militaria in terms of uniforms and badges. However, he was surprised to find that there were very few published sources dealing with air force uniforms in general and those of the Royal Australian Air Force in particular. As a result, John and fellow collectors began to establish their own reference collections and knowledge on the subject.It soon became clear that there was a need to consolidate their joint knowledge of RAAF uniforms into a format that could be used by collectors in both Australia and internationally.

John and his colleagues submitted a proposal to the then Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal Mark Binskin, to write such a reference book. To the surprise and delight of the group the proposal was accepted. What was not envisaged was the length of time that the project would take to bring to fruition. However, after many long hours and much hard work, the manuscript was completed in early 2016 and was entered into that year's Air Force Heritage Awards. In recognition of the heritage value of the book to the RAAF it was awarded second prize in the Literary Section.