Ginger leaving home

[kylie_koyote]

Yes it would be easier to read but you would think Ginger's spelling would be a bit better. In Hits The Trail Ginger says he has taken the aeroplane's engines to pieces and reassembled them before they set out on their journey so he must have been quite skilled even then. Biggles also says in & Co. that Hebblethwaite is a good ground engineer although he has never actually flown abroad solo. There is quite a contrast between his very youthful, inexperienced side and his ability with his hands and technical things. In Air Commodore he has taken a crash course in the use of the radio system but in other ways he is still very young.

I've just finished a nonfiction WW2 memoir and the American aircrews were required to know how to assemble all their equipment blindfolded, to simulate darkness or loss of eyesight through injury. I presume it was the same for the RAF.

[Frecks]

I doubt that would include taking out an engine and reassembling it in a workshop. I think there was a similar idea in the Army for the soldiers to be able to assemble their guns etc. in the dark.

[Fairblue]

I doubt that would include taking out an engine and reassembling it in a workshop. I think there was a similar idea in the Army for the soldiers to be able to assemble their guns etc. in the dark.

Assembling and reassembling an engine blindfolded seems on the face of it a good idea, but probably totally impracticable. I, for one, couldn't see Biggles wanting to fly an aircraft under such conditions. But I did have to learn to disassemble and reassemble a weapon in the dark. The secret was to place each component in a certain order on the ground so it could be found again easily. As with everything else, though, practicing it was a lot easier than it would have have been in a real combat situation.

[Frecks]

Yes it would have been very different if you were under fire.

[tiffinata]

Ever talked to a kid about dinosaurs?
Ginger reminds me of one of those, with his thirst for knowledge on aircraft.
He would have had access to the library, some films and who knows how many flying circuses there might have been? There were various air races that would have been in the daily newspapers and probably cinema newsreels. The Schneider Trophy and the Macrobertson Air Race are two I know of. WEJ wrote about the latter in one of his books and pretty much said "everyone knows about this one by now", even though the race had only just been finished.

[Frecks]

Yes I am sure in the early 1930s there would have been plenty of ways of finding out about aviation. I wonder if many working class people had a wireless set at that time. We know Ginger read a lot and went to the cinema.

[Purple Pigeon]

He could also have gone for the Airman badge in the Scouts!

[Tracer]

Most homes would have had a wireless set then.

Re: the assembling of guns blindfolded - I read a lovely tale of a chap whose father had taught him to do this as a young lad. Upon the exercise coming up in Army training, he was called forward during the lesson, blindfolded and told to take his gun apart. He did this, and, still blindfolded, felt a shadow fall over him, and heard someone in the ranks snigger. When told to re-assemble his gun, he found that some pieces had been moved, but because of his Dad's training, he relocated and fitted them with ease.

He completed the exercise faster than it had ever been done before, and as he said, inadvertently "made a powerful enemy" of the training officer.

[Foolscap]

With thanks to Frecks for checking if this made sense:-)

Dust

Small particles of dust ingrained
In clothing, skin and hair;
An accidental souvenir;
A thin, persistent layer.
Some blows away on country lanes,
Or clings to leaf and stone;
As one determined traveller
Treks on; head high; alone.
Some settles onto farmer's fields
Where light footsteps have been;
A young resourceful scavenger
Who gathers food, unseen.
And more inside a railway hut,
A shelter for the night;
And smudges on the tracks close by
Where nimble feet take flight.
A further tiny trace upon
A taxi's leather seat,
And also near a runway
Where two lifelong friends first meet.
Some swirls around a cockpit:
Rescue mission; urgent haste.
A lot of what remains is left
In ragged clothes; now waste.
A microscopic fleck is mixed
With toolshed straw and soot;
Disturbed in struggles...life or death;
And trampled underfoot.
The trees and bushes takes a share,
Brushed off at frantic pace,
As loyal comrades claim their own,
And enemies give chase...
~0~
An autumn day, an aerodrome
In sunshine, bright and clear.
The last few specks of coal dust
Catch the breeze, and disappear.
~0~

[Fairblue]

Yet another little gem, Foolscap. And spot on, as usual. Thank you.

[Spitfire666]

Oh wow and wow, this is simply brilliant, Foolscap.

[RAAF Spitfire Girl]

Yet another little gem, Foolscap. And spot on, as usual. Thank you.

Oh wow and wow, this is simply brilliant, Foolscap.

And I echo both the above.

[Tracer]

That final stanza fair prickles the hair. Once again - superb!

[Frecks]

I love this poem. It is extra special to me as it spans my two models - Ginger's childhood home and the Mount Street flat in the 1930s when Ginger first joined Biggles & Algy.

[OzBiggles1963]

That final stanza fair prickles the hair. Once again - superb!

Ditto! That final stanza made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up...absolutely bally vertical in fact, lol.

[kylie_koyote]

That final stanza fair prickles the hair. Once again - superb!

I concur and add my admiration and thanks, FC.

[Foolscap]

On a similar line...

A rough, often difficult childhood;
The rod seldom spared.
A lad holding dreams for the future,
Though no one else cared.
A mother he could not remember;
A father bereft,
Bowed down by long years at the coal face;
No trace of hope left.
A bleak and predictable pathway
From schoolroom to mine;
Where any bright spark of ambition
Would struggle to shine.
A strong, irrepressible spirit;
Displacing despair.
A fiery and bold disposition
To match his red hair.
A choice, a life-changing decision
No longer denied.
A final, intense confrontation;
A father defied.
~0~
The sky stretching endless above him;
The world opened wide.
~0~

[Frecks]

That is brilliant Foolscap - so evocative and moving.

[Tracer]

And those last two lines especially.

[266]

Spot on. I love it.

[Foolscap]

Thank you very much:-)
I think Ginger did well to hold on to his hope of a different future