By the end of the first chapter, I was gripped and eagre to read more. By the end of the book, I didn’t know if I would have liked him or loathed him but I was sure of one thing: I wish I’d met him.
‘Alan Bristow: Helicopter Pioneer’ tells the story of an extraordinary man's extraordinary life.
As everyone who worked for Bristow Helicopters in his day has told me, 'the Old Man’ was an almost mythical figure, sometimes frightening, bombastic, capricious, unpredictable, sometimes generous and forgiving, but always a one-man show, able to do any job in the company from writing the contracts to flying the helicopters to maintaining the engines and even sweeping the hangar floor.
Aged 16 the day war broke out, Bristow joined the Merchant Navy. Two ships were sunk under him before he ran away to join the Fleet Air Arm and learned to fly on Cornells and Harvards in Canada.
Diverted to helicopters against his will, he went on to become Westland Aircraft’s first helicopter test pilot working under the great Harald Penrose. Characteristically, he was sacked after knocking out the sales manager, picking him up by the ears and banging his head against the wall.
Bristow flew Hillers in North Africa and had many crashes, then went to Indochina where he won the Croix de Guerre evacuating wounded French soldiers under fire.
He fell in with some ex-SS mercenaries who were leaving the Foreign Legion to go whaling and sold helicopter services to Aristotle Onassis who had a pirate fleet in the Antarctic. Bristow had many narrow squeaks, including landing an iced-up Hiller on an iceberg when it would fly no more.
His big break came in 1955 when he met Douglas Bader, then managing Shell’s aviation assets, and began supplying oil rigs in the Persian Gulf using piston-engined Whirlwinds. Bristow clearly loved the camaraderie of the campfire and kept flying in Bolivia until the late 1950s, but when Freddie Laker bought Bristow Helicopters on behalf of Air Holdings Ltd in 1960, Bristow was already a tax exile in Bermuda.
During the 1960s the company expanded across the world and launched the North Sea services which it was eventually to dominate, with Bristow at the helm except for a three-year secondment as CEO of BUA.
Ousted by Lord Cayzer in an argument over a Board position for the son of the Indonesian President, Bristow launched a takeover for Westland Helicopters, which led to the famous ‘Westland Affair’. Bristow’s insider take on the political events of the time is particularly fascinating – the book says he was twice offered a knighthood to switch sides.
Perhaps the man himself sums up the flavour of the book in part of his own summary:
“I have drunk champagne with billionaires in the best hotels in the world and hauled my men out of some of the seediest whorehouses in South America. I have been court-martialled for desertion and awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Order of the British Empire. I have triumphed in shipboard brawls which would have appalled the Marquis of Queensbury and have represented my country at four-in-hand carriage driving with the Duke of Edinburgh. I have put a lot of backs up and disjointed a lot of noses, physically and metaphorically, and in an era when most companies are controlled by risk-averse men in suits shuffling other people’s money and creaming off their cut, my way of doing business is perhaps an anachronism. But by God, it was fun while it lasted!”
Full of adventure and humour, a great life properly celebrated. Very well written - not surprising because it was co-written with Patrick Malone who is a superb aviation writer and also an enthusiastic pilot.
Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in the helicopter industry.
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