Originally Posted by
Airbanda
Nevil Shute's 'In the Wet' written in the early fifties but set in the eighties seems to regard operation of jet transports from grass as routine. The hero, David Anderson, flies the Queen's Flight's imaginary De Haviland Ceres to and from White Waltham, putting it down upon the grass after the sheep have been herded away.
Knowledgable though N.S.Norway was, his guessing what would be normal thirty years later is hardly evidence. However by the real 1980s we successors to de Havilland did have "jet transports" with LCN requirements suitable for unpaved runways - and doubtless some of those runways were grass.
Anyway the Hatfield concrete runway was finished well before the Comet needed it (see spekesoftly's link) and although the prototype had single-wheel main u/c I'm pretty sure the huge tyres were not expected to operate from grass.