Family Aviation History

The intent of this page is to touch on certain aviation related involvements and memories of my father and grandfather plus maybe a few aspects of my flying

My Grandfather was a member of the Kent Bicycling Battalion, whose function was to patrol the Kent coast in anticipation of a German invasion and to use their bicycles for the speedy capture of air crew from any Zepplins that were destroyed on bombing missions to London. Subsequently my grandfather was a member of the Royal Flying Corps, the precursor to the Royal Air Force, to which he transferred at its formation in 1918.

My grandfather subsequently spent time at Gosport, Henlow and Cardington. Cardington was (and still is) the centre for Air Ship development within the UK. One of my grandfather’s memories was of desperately clinging (with many others) to the ropes of airships as they manoeuvred in and out of the huge, purpose-built hangars. These same hangars remain and are now in use by the Advanced Technologies Group who are developing a range of state of the art "lighter than air" vehicles.

Further postings were to Palestine and Egypt – the latter being a family posting with my grandmother and my father who was then three years old.

My father commenced his RAF career with an apprenticeship at RAF Halton followed by a posting to RAF Farnborough where he was first introduced to Spitfires. He recollects the tree to which Colonel Codey of “Wild Bill Hickock” fame used to secure his aircraft. The tree had remained intact for many years although I understand it has since withered away and been replaced by a plaque.

Further postings to Weston Zoyland and then Bodorgan in Anglesey followed. It was whilst at Bodorgan (and its parent airfield Valley) that my father met my mother. Then postings were to Dum Dum in India and Rangoon in Burma for a total of three years. The aircraft maintained there were the Dakota, Liberator and York plus whatever else dropped out of the sky for patching up. My father has always complained that he has no luck with the lottery, football pools or premium bonds yet he is the only person I know who won an all expenses paid holiday away from the war in Burma. Various aircraft occasionally returned to the UK and of course replacement and reinforcement aircraft were constantly flying to Burma from the UK. When a seat was available back to the UK it was raffled amongst the squadron members which gave my father a very welcome month back in Anglesey with my mother.

I was aged two and this was my first introduction to my father, an extremely suntanned man who spoke a foreign language which I later learned to be English. Anglesey has always been the bastion of the Welsh language and rarely is English acquired until school age which meant my father and I were unable to communicate with each other without my mother’s assistance. Other than this brief visit by my father I continued in a completely Welsh speaking environment. My father returned in 1949 and my mother and I joined him in his next posting to RAF Driffield in Yorkshire. I was now aged five and bewildered to discover that all my new friends suffered the same inability to communicate as my father. However, this time I was heavily outnumbered and in the effortless way in which young children acquire new languages I became an “English boy” within a matter of weeks. The next cultural shock was starting school some months later thus meeting the children of Driffield town (the big world outside the RAF camp) to discover with horror that they spoke yet another foreign language, although with certain similarities to English. This was the Yorkshire accent – quite a jolt when English itself is a second language!!

After the end of the second world war came postings to Shawbury, Driffield, Butterworth in Malaya and then Benson, Aden and Lindholme. The period in Malaya (now Malaysia) was a particularly happy time encompassing the years 1954 to 1957 and permitting us to be there to join in the spectacular celebrations on 31 August 1957 of Merdeka (the independence of Malaya).

This page will steadily expand and eventually include much more of interest and humour.

I am not sure how much of my aviation past I will include, as I may decide to invoke the 25 year (or perhaps the 50 year) disclosure rules on certain aspects. However, I will include some very fond memories of the Slingsby T21 and Olympia 11b gliders also the Beagle Airedale (first displayed at Farnborough in 1957) and many other types.

My first flight in an aircraft was as a child in a Hermes in which my mother and I flew from Blackbushe to Singapore in 1954. It was a three day trip in an aircraft with a performance not much better than some of the light single engine Cessnas and Pipers I was to fly a few years later.

The “Reverse Auto Pulley Winch Launch” used by the Trent Valley Gliding Club (then at Sturgate, Lincolnshire. This was an old Jaguar considerably modified and blessed with an oversized diesel engine out of a lorry. I would very much like to obtain some photos. Also any photographs that exist of “Blue John” the Olympia 11b in which I owned a share together with Bob Parker, Nev Wilson and ? who was the other one?

Does anyone have any photographs taken during the year I spent tugging gliders at Kirton Lindsey with the Beagle Airedale? I will check my log books for dates.