Identifying Crash incident
Hello, I wonder if any knowledgeable members of the forum can possibly help?
I'm researching the life of a TV Director for a film project which I'm working on and for an associated article about his career & life. One of the interviewees I spoke to, who knew him, recounted an incident during a period he had been in the RAF and involved in a crash, and I hope to verify the story and maybe find out additional information about it. The story was told to him 40 years ago, so I do not know, after all this time, how much is reliable, but below is the information I have been given....
I know subject's name was Christopher Baker. He later became a TV director on shows like 'All Creatures Great & Small', 'The Gentle Touch' and 'Boon', and is known to have joined the BBC around 1957, so I'm assuming the crash happened before then (although there is a 5 year-gap in his employment history between 1962-7, so it is feasible, though unlikely, it occurred in the Sixties).
The interviewee told me the following quote: “I do remember him telling me a horrific story about his days as an RAF jet pilot well before his days in tv…I believe he was stationed in Germany and on war practice manoeuvres when his jet plane developed a problem and he had to bail out. The jet crashed but he landed by parachute in a farmers field in the middle of nowhere. He landed badly and broke both his legs and he told me that, unnoticed, he had to crawl as best he could some way across the field to a farmhouse where he got help from a concerned but kindly farmer and his family. Fortunately there were no other casualties.”
That is all I have to go on. Which is pretty scant. Possibly in the 1950s, Possibly in West Germany. All I know for certain is his name was Christopher Baker. Can anyone help narrow the field and suggest a way forward? It would be greatly appreciated if any of that could be verified!
Thank you for your time and help
Stuart