The Old Fogducker
23rd Dec 2011, 05:51
This is one of my first posts on PRUNE in several years, so if this should be moved, feel free to do so.
To obtain a 30 meg file sized MP3 of this excellent audio production, here's a link to follow for a download.
https://rcpt.yousendit.com/1323693186/a85a76c1ab8ff0cc36e87a8330b3a251
The Shepherd relates the story of a De Havilland Vampire pilot, going home on Christmas Eve 1957, whose aircraft suffers a complete electrical failure en route from RAF Celle in northern Germany to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk.
Lost in fog and low on fuel, he is met and led (or shepherded) to a disused RAF dispersal field by the pilot of a De Havilland Mosquito fighter-bomber of World War II vintage, who has apparently been sent up to guide him in.
His attempts to find a rational explanation for his eventual rescue prove as troublesome as his experience. However, some time after he lands at the airfield—the fictional RAF Minton—he learns that his saviour was Johnny Kavanagh, a wartime RAF pilot who had been stationed at Minton and who had guided crippled bombers home.
The Vampire pilot also learns that Kavanagh disappeared over the North Sea in his Mosquito on his last mission, on Christmas Eve, exactly fourteen years before.
Forsyth created as an original work as a Christmas gift to his wife after she requested a ghost story be written for her. Written on Christmas Day, and published near that time a year later, the idea came while trying to think of a setting away from the typical haunted homes, and seeing planes flying overhead. Many have speculated references to preexisting RAF folklore. While Forsyth was a former RAF pilot and could have heard and adapted such a story (either with or without the intent to do so) no references or anecdotal evidence have been put forward to support such claims.
Beginning in 1979 the story has been broadcast each year on Christmas Eve on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Radio programme As It Happens, read by the late Alan Maitland.
To obtain a 30 meg file sized MP3 of this excellent audio production, here's a link to follow for a download.
https://rcpt.yousendit.com/1323693186/a85a76c1ab8ff0cc36e87a8330b3a251
The Shepherd relates the story of a De Havilland Vampire pilot, going home on Christmas Eve 1957, whose aircraft suffers a complete electrical failure en route from RAF Celle in northern Germany to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk.
Lost in fog and low on fuel, he is met and led (or shepherded) to a disused RAF dispersal field by the pilot of a De Havilland Mosquito fighter-bomber of World War II vintage, who has apparently been sent up to guide him in.
His attempts to find a rational explanation for his eventual rescue prove as troublesome as his experience. However, some time after he lands at the airfield—the fictional RAF Minton—he learns that his saviour was Johnny Kavanagh, a wartime RAF pilot who had been stationed at Minton and who had guided crippled bombers home.
The Vampire pilot also learns that Kavanagh disappeared over the North Sea in his Mosquito on his last mission, on Christmas Eve, exactly fourteen years before.
Forsyth created as an original work as a Christmas gift to his wife after she requested a ghost story be written for her. Written on Christmas Day, and published near that time a year later, the idea came while trying to think of a setting away from the typical haunted homes, and seeing planes flying overhead. Many have speculated references to preexisting RAF folklore. While Forsyth was a former RAF pilot and could have heard and adapted such a story (either with or without the intent to do so) no references or anecdotal evidence have been put forward to support such claims.
Beginning in 1979 the story has been broadcast each year on Christmas Eve on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Radio programme As It Happens, read by the late Alan Maitland.