I came into aviation the hard way. I was never in the R.A.F., and my parents hadnâ€™t got fifteen hundred pounds to spend on pilot training for me at a flying school. My father was, and is, a

ROUND THE BEND

I came into aviation the hard way. I was never in the R.A.F., and my parents hadnâ€™t got fifteen hundred pounds to spend on pilot training for me at a flying school. My father was, and is, a crane driver at Southampton docks, and I am one of seven children, five boys and two girls. I went to the council school like all the other kids in our street, and then when I left school Dad got me a job in a garage out on the Portsmouth Road. That was in 1929. I stayed there for about three years and got to know a bit about cars. Then, early in the summer, Sir Alan Cobham came to Southampton with his flying circus, National Aviation Day, he called it. He operated in a big way, because he had about fifteen aeroplanes, Avros and Moths and a glider and an Autogiro, and a Lincock for stunting displays, and a big old Handley Page airliner for mass joyriding, and a new thing called an Airspeed Ferry. My, that was a grand turnout to watch. I knew from the first day that to be with that circus was the job for me. He was at Hamble for three days, and I was out at the field each day from early in the morning till dark. The chaps fuelling and cleaning down the aircraft let me help them, coiling down a hose or fetching an oil drum for them to stand on; when there was nothing else that wanted doing I went round the enclosures picking up the waste paper that the crowd had left behind and taking it away to bum in a comer of the field. It was fun just doing that, because of the aeroplanes.

Country	USA
Author	Nevil Shute
Binding	Paperback
EAN	9781520817767
IsAdultProduct
ISBN	1520817762
Label	Independently published
Manufacturer	Independently published
NumberOfPages	311
PublicationDate	2017-03-12
Publisher	Independently published
Studio	Independently published
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

ROUND THE BEND

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