In about 1950-something, I saved all the money I could make from selling newspapers to the butcher and taking empty beer and soft drink bottles to the pub and corner store to put a layby on Neville Duke's Complete Book of Flying (or whater the title was - the cover had ND in helmet looking up from Hunter cockpit).
When I'd at last paid for it, I brought it home and had my Mum carefully cover it with plastic.
I'd hate to say how many hours I spent reading and re-reading (and re-reading!) that book. I can still remember the first chaper's title: "Nutshell Navigation", and the b&w pics of Vampires with the yellow stripes ("The 'L' Plates of the air") on their wings - (the very aeroplane I was to get my wings in some 10 or 12 years later).
I think the same book had a pic of the X3 towards the back of it, which had to be the spoofiest flying machine I had ever seen, (and to this day, still rates pretty highly as a mean looking piece of kit).
Never had the privilege of meeting the man, but that book he wrote for kids like me back then certainly had the desired effect on this then very much aspiring young aviator.