In years past, on another aviation forum, I have been able to post this link to an audio file download location to get a copy of "The Shepherd" by Frederick Forsyth.
It makes for wonderful listening on a Christmas Eve....especially if the weather is duff.
This link will only be valid for 10 days or 100 downloads. If there is sufficient interest, I'll gladly reload it and post another link.
Thanks for posting that ... great story. After last year, I finally purchased the disc from the CBC store and uploaded to the iPod. Now I have The Shepard and a few other Christmas stories read by Alan to enjoy.
And a happy Christmas to you as well CD. I always enjoyed your well researched posts on the other forum.
Glad I was able to help a few people enjoy The Shepherd.
Alan Maitland was one the absolute best readers the CBC had, and the equal of him will be a very long time coming around.
Hopefully by that time, the CBC will be broken up into its components and sold to the private sector..... or perhaps at least turned into a PBS style of funding model rather than the state-owned broadcaster being funded to the tune of 1.16 billion dollars via the taxpayers pocketbook to represent the views and values of a small slice of the population.
Sorry I can't be of any more help with respect to other works by Frederick Forsyth.
The Shepherd is stupendous though .... and my first exposure to it was when I was flying a group of school teachers from a very small town in northern Saskatchewan to the south for their Christmas holidays. It was an absolute perfectly clear night at the beginning of the trip, and everything was bang-on excellent with respect to my flight conditions, so I tuned in the regional high power transmitter of the CBC and listened on the ADF.
Nobody else was flying, and the ATC frequency was "deader than a doornail."
Within moments, the CBC began playing Alan Maitland reading "The Shepherd" and as the story of his flight in the Vampire unfolded, I began to fly over an undercast, soon transitioning into cloud, then some ice in the tops, and the flight terminated in an approach to minimums at the destination in wet snow about 10 minutes after the conclusion of the show.
While I was booting off the ice, hand flying the NDB approach in the pitch black, I almost expected to see another aircraft formate on my wingtip and give me a hand gesture to follow him on the approach.
It was quite a night, and I always think of that load of happy go lucky school teachers with a load of gift wrapped parcels getting away from a super-small northern community for Christmas Break whenever I listen to the well written and superbly performed version of "The Shepherd."
I'll be offering it again next year for people to enjoy.
I'm working on it .... this is a "bump" to the top of the list letting people know that I haven't forgotten .... just didn't have the means ... wasn't near the computer where the file was stored.
Thank you for making this available! I've listened to Alan Maitland's reading of The Shepherd on CBC radio since I was a little girl - every Christmas Eve. It became even more meaningful after I started flying. But nothing can top the story you recounted of hearing The Shepherd on that wintry Saskatchewan night. Hope you're compiling your own collection of tales.
Thank-you for your comments, and I'm glad to be of assistance.
Lame O .... quite a number of people have encouraged me to write a book, and I may well do that when I actually retire. Several generations in my family have written hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, and I do enjoy painting word pictures.
In support of the written content of any potential book, one of the regrets of my career is the lack of photos taken along the way. I doubt I have more than a dozen which cover 40 years in the business, which is a shame, and for being the son of a newspaper photographer, borders on being downright sinful.
There always seemed to be other pressing matters to deal with at the time, and there was always tomorrow for frivolity such as taking pictures of what at the time just seemed like my everyday, non-exciting aviation life, and there was nothing special about it. It wasn't until later that I realized that relative to the general population, that wasn't the case.
So let that be a lesson to you ... take lots and lots of pictures along the way. In today's digital camera era, it costs nothing to click that shutter button, and you'll look back at that collection of people and aircraft with fondness when you're ready to hang up your headset, and let someone else have a go at the seat.
"The Shepherd" By Frederick Forsyth
