Still teaching Instruments to the Navy
By the way , I was looking through my Log Books and I saw that I took a Rapide to Yeadon via Coventry on August 18th. 1951 and the passenger was a Mr. Lumb. So that was the name of the courteous gentleman with the lovely old Daimler and the Chauffeur. I wonder whether anyone has ever heard of him ?
Still teaching the Fleet Air Arm how to fly on Instruments at Rochester; One day in February 1952 I was driving in to work when I saw my Flight Commander, Peter Harrison, flagging me down on the other side of the road. " Go back home, pack a few things,; you've got to go to Corsica " he said . Short Bros. at that time were making a small amphibian called the Sealand and one of them, on a delivery flight had gone U/S with engine trouble and had landed in Ajaccio, Corsica. It was piloted by Don Tanton, their Chief Company Pilot. I had met him briefly but our paths were to cross many times in the years to come.
Apart from the odd trip across the channel to Le Touqet, Deauville, Knokke-Le Zoute etc. I had never made a long distance flight from England in Civil Aviation. This was truly a big break from the mundane task of teaching good instrument flying to, mainly Lt/Cdrs but the odd Admiral popped up now and then ,so picking up a Wireless Operator, a Mechanic for the Sealand and loads of spare parts for the engine we cleared Customs at Croydon and set off on our first leg to Lyons. We did not have the equipment for night flying so I decided to spend the night there. Our aircraft was one of the training flight Oxfords and it performed faultlessly throughout the entire trip.
At Lyons one of the Air Traffic controllers, who spoke English , gave us a lift in to the city and took us to a small but cosy Restaurant that also had rooms to let. We were made very welcome as ex-RAF flyers were extrenely popular in France. After cleaning up we came down for our evening meal which was better than anything we had tasted for years.
Lyons prided itself as being the Gastronomic centre of France and I would heartily endorse that claim. The Patron, a small swarthy man with jet black hair, came over and joined us and with my halting schoolboy French and his few words of English we had a good conversation going helped by the numerous large Cognacs that kept appearing and which the Patron insisted were on the House. When he heard that we were going to Ajaccio next morning he actually burst in to tears. "Me, Ajaccio" he repeated , thumping his chest and pointing to himself. It turned out that he had left Ajaccio as a small boy about twenty years before and had never been back although he had large members of his family still there. The Cognacs must have done their work on me very well because I found myself saying "Viens avec nous , demain "...Come with us tomorrow.! There was absolutely no reason why not. There was plenty of room aboard. The only thing was that we didn't know how long the engine repairs were going to take so we couldn't give him a return date. His Wife, dressed in the typical black bombazine and perched upon her seat where she could see everything that was going on had been watching us with ever growing disapproval. Monsieur Orsi, for that was his name, sensed this and made us understand that we should sleep and see what we thought tomorrow. He had obviously a good knowledge of what a few large Cognacs could do to a person !
We came down, with sore heads, to a gigantic breakfast. Mr.Orsi had been to the market around five o'clock in the morning to buy fresh eggs and bacon as he knew this was the favoured Brirish breakfast but four eggs each with mushrooms,tomatoes to top the beautiful slices of best ham was one of the best breakfasts that I can remember. After we washed the breakfast down with , not the best coffee that I have tasted, I told him that he could come, subject to him signing a disclaimer relieving Shorts of all responsibility. As he signed this his Wife burst into tears and embraced him as though she would never see him again which was probably what was going through her mind.
Last edited by regle; 15th Jul 2009 at 08:47.
Reason: correction