BITTEN FOR LIFE BY THE AVIATION BUG
Final memories of a five-year-old in RAF Poona, 1946
I'm beside myself with excitement, for Daddy says he will take me to the airfield tomorrow if I'm a good boy, we'll go early before the heat builds up. I duly waken early and race into my parents' bedroom where they are still asleep, and Daddy sounds cross when he tells me to go back to bed, it's only four o'clock. I go in later and Daddy is really cross, he says it's only five o'clock.
At last we finish breakfast and Daddy puts me on his crossbar for the short cycle ride to the airfield. To my delight a Vengeance stands on the dusty apron, an inviting set of steps leading up to the cockpit. How thoughtful, I think, Daddy must have told them I was coming. An airman in khaki overall seems amused when Daddy seats me on a concrete block with a steel ring on top, and a rope from the ring is tied around my waist. He tells the airman that I can disappear in a flash, he tells me the concrete is an aeroplane picket weight, and I'm delighted to be picketed down like an aeroplane.
To my amazement the airman turns out to be the pilot, for he seems quite ordinary and not the superhuman I expected. He gives me a wave as he climbs into the front and his passenger climbs into a big space at the back. I remark on the size of this space and point out that there is ample room for Daddy and I both, but Daddy replies DEFINITELY NOT. After a few minutes there is a loud whining sound and the propeller starts to turn. And turn. And turn.
Clearly the Vengeance has a problem. With anticipation I wait for the pilot to get down, give it a kick and call it “yoo ********* ****” as Sgt James does when his motorcycle won't start, but suddenly there's a hollow cough, then a series of clanking, banging and chuffing noises as puffs of smoke belch from a big pipe out the side, then a sheet of flame with black smoke and a vast cloud of blue smoke, all whipped away with the dust as the propeller turns faster and faster and the spluttering engine settles down to a steady rumble I can feel in my bones.
I watch spellbound as the huge aeroplane zig-zags towards the runway with the pilot hanging out either side to see where he is going as his superhuman X-ray powers may not be working too well today. He pauses for what seems an age and I begin to hope that he's decided to come back for me after all. But at last the Vengeance starts to roll forward, the engine thunder reaches us, the tail comes up, faster and faster he goes until the tubby shape heaves itself slowly into the shimmering copper of the Indian sky. This is the magic moment I decide that I shall learn to fly, and own my own aircraft one day.
Seventy years later: After Poona we went to Karachi where my goal of acquiring a Vengeance was upgraded to a Lancaster … It took another 32 years before I learned that you can't have everything and settled for a Tiger Moth. But to this day the glorious sound of big pistons sends shivers down my spine.