When I was at Burnaston in the Heady Days of Kings Cup:8. Our man was Ron Payne in his Speed Six and the arch rival was Nat !

We used to top overhaul the engine ( Even with 50 hours on it since last top :)) we taped in the aileron and elevator gaps and polished the aircraft a dozen times - this was a pennance for any misbehaving apprenti :O - just before the races:ok:

Nat Somers owned Panshanger by the early fifties.

I had heard of his stinginess but he donated a Tiger Moth to the Hertfordshire Police Flying Club which had a hut on the northern side of the airfield. This may have been a cunning plan to keep in with the local plod of course.The Tiger needed rebuilding but as an anklebiter at the time I don't know how much that involved.

In the late sixties, the resident flying club employed an engineer that for some reason Somers hated. So he could vanish when Somers visited he refurbished one of the old long-abandoned huts in the woods to use as an office.