The Rotary Nostalgia Thread

[Ahh de Havilland]

The Flying Absalom's

To pick up on a previous topic, here are a few snippets of information on Gay Absalom’s family and their rotary exploits.

As posted by Savoia on page 56, her father Rowland Absalom featured in a 1965 British Pathe news itemabout him commuting by helicopter from home in Hertfordshire to work Sidcup,Kent. Search Results - British Pathé

The featured helicopter was Brantly G-ASXD, registered jointly to United Marine (1939) and Kebell Developments and in the film he can be seen approaching a building with the titles United Marine. Kebbell Developments was founded by Charles Kebbell, who was a Kiwi and a wartime RAF pilot, who had married Meryl Absalom, Rowland’s sister, and went to work for her father’s building firm before setting up on his own.

In an earlier posting by Savoia there was a cutting about the Trophy Championship meeting of the Helicopter Club of Great Britain that was organized by Rowland Absalom and during which the winners of the helicopter treasure hunt were "Charles Kebbell in his Brantly B2B and his navigator-son Nicholas".

Rowland Absalom had a string of helicopters registered to United Marine: G-ASXD, followed by JetRanger G-AYBE, and finally Gazelle G-BAGJ. The Gazelle carried the logo & titles of Point-to-Point Helicopters, which turns out to have the same registered office as United Marine. So it looks like Rowland owned that company, which was formed in 1968 and had JetRanger G-AWJL and Hughes 300 G-BABN & G-BBIP. They were also reported by Flight to have a Hughes 500 but I haven’t been able to identify that one.

Point-to-Point was reported to have purchased the helicopter operation of Air Gregory, but I can’t confirm this. Both United Marine & Point-to Point seem to disappear around 1979 but what happened I don’t know.

It’s interesting how small the rotary world was in the 1960’s. Can anyone add any more to the story?