One of my all time best aviation authors is Richard Bach. He blends the philosophical with aviation and I love the fruitfulness of this combination. I corresponded with him briefly whilst capturing my own flying imagination onto paper, and being able to have an exchange with one of my writing heroes was significant, to say the least. Anyway, I have just finished 'Out of my Mind', and this is an extract: "The roof of the hangar door was a long shallow arch, fifty feet above the ground. Beneath the arch, a wide band of windowpanes, hundreds of windowpanes. Beneath the windows, giant doors, thirty feet tall. The thunder, deep and low, was the sound of one of those massive doors rolling open. I watched, unmoving. Voices across the distance, unintelligible. A laugh. The men wore white overalls. They’re mechanics, I thought, then rephrased: They’re ground engineers. The deep rumble continued, a tall black rectangle of the interior widening. Presently the rumbling stopped and the door stood open. A bird sang nearby, four sudden notes to the sun, a song I did not recognize. Then from within the hangar appeared an aircraft, a small open biplane, gradually pulled into the day. Silver, the wings, the colour of metal flaked from a lathe. A fuselage of dusty mint, silver again the surfaces of the rudder and elevators. A fitter pulled at each wingtip, one on the tail pushed a dolly on which rested the machine’s tailskid. Their voices carried on the breeze, though distance mixed the sound, and not a word could I understand. Airports I known and I love, airports have always been home to me, no matter where on the planet I might be. Not thinking, then, I began to walk along the path to the hangar. Softly rolling countryside, a mile-wide square of level turf around the hangar. No runways, no taxiways. Not an airport, would they call it. An aerodrome. The path curved right, then left again. The hangar was screened for a while by a hedge bordering the pathway. But a few minutes later the hedge dropped away to a row of careful flowers planted. Primula. Primrose, they might say here. By now the hangar was huge at my left. Fronting it was a building of wood and stone, to the left of that, a car-park. This is where I stopped again. There were several motor vehicles on the gravel. Small, most of them, squarish, metals dull and metals gleaming. A gawky motorcycle, as much a motorbike painted olive green, balanced on a frail kickstand."
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The small things are often the lens which put the bigger things in life into perspective.
After supper, and before we say our prayers, I tuck Bella into bed. She reaches across to her bedside table for the book that we have been reading chapter by chapter over the past few nights, asking "What happens next, Dad?" I have been waiting for the timing to be right to introduce Bella to the author that inspired to me to read, Roald Dahl. His books hold such an important place in my childhood memories, and I hope that he will be able to nurture the same sense of wonder in Bella's imagination. As I read, her small fingers trace the outline of the lined sketches on intermittent pages, and I known that Dahl is breathing his magic into little sparks behind her eyes. At the same time, I am transported to my own childhood memoriesthat have been long forgotten all those moons ago. Bella's head is nestled on my chest, and I know that she is smiling as I read. It is in these spaces where life's meaning is actualised. Thanks to Pilot's Post, a fantastic video describing the event: The last time I was in Tuli, I was woken one night with what I thought was the sound of something being killed. It sounded cow-like and was an intense bleat-moo that shook the ground. The sound went on and on, and it was quite disturbing as it sounded like whatever was calling was in some serious distress. Before I had gone to sleep, I had seen a herd of elephant that were quite vocal about sharing the area with the lions. It turns out that the sound I had heard late that night was an elephant. The ranger said that there is one elephant which had lost part of its trunk because it had been caught in a snare. Fortunately the elephant had adapted to drinking water with its mouth and stripping leaves and bark much like a giraffe and a buck would. The pain and discomfort that the poor elephant must have felt, however, while its trunk withered away, must have been excruciating. Whoever placed the snare was obviously not intending to wound an elephant, but as I have said in my title, snares do not select their victims.
A similar case was made real in Gareth Patterson's book 'Cry for the Lions': "Snaring is non-selective and, therefore, affects almost all of the animals within the reserve, including the elephant. Some of the saddest sights that I have ever seen at Mashatu were of these great beasts afflicted with terrible injuries by the traps, a tragic by-product of a strong and cleverly-placed wire, not intended to trap the elephant but the lions and other animals. I once found a young bull of perhaps twenty years of age, which I noticed was almost hobbling along as it moved slowly down the Pitsani valley. On closer inspection I saw that a wire cable snare had encircled its hind right leg. There was nothing I could do about it and I knew that the kindest thing to do would be to put it down. With another ranger, we shot the bull, giving it a reprieve from its pain. When we examined the wound we were horrified at what we saw. The wire had severed arteries, tendons and muscles and held fast against the bone of the leg. How can one ever imagine or describe the agony endured by this young elephant." Unless we can find a solution to poverty, these instances will continue, and that is where the David Attenborough reference in my previous post become very inspiring. I have just concluded this series, and the final episode is perhaps the most inspiring and hopeful. I've just finished this little treasure of a book, which details the ongoing conflict between man and lions in the Tuli/Mashatu area. Sensitively written, here is an extract that I particularly enjoyed:
"When I first saw the blonde solitary nomad, he was very shy of the vehicle. His colour was so light that, from his appearance, he could quite possibly have been sired by the 'Old Man', the former pride male of the Lalapanzi pride. His frame was large and well-muscled and glowed like gold. His face was still unblemished, unlike those of the veteran pride lions, such as the Pitsani males or Darky. This nomad was a magnificent young prince, over-eager and over-confident to claim his own kingdom. He was probably just over four years old and had very little mane clinging to his chest. From where he had come and to where he was going I could only guess. I found him again two days later on the plains, lying in a stately fashion at the foot of an umbrella shaped Shepherd's Tree, its canopy fanning wide and blocking out rays of the midday sun and casting a broad circle of shade around his resting body. After his initial concern for my presence, as I parked some one hundred paces from him, he settled and began to stare motionless across the plains as they shimmered in the heat. As he sat the wind blew softly from the south, bringing to the nomad secret messages of animals and activities below him. Occasionally he would lift his yellow head high and inhale an invisible scent. As the sun began to sink to the horizon and the sky was ignited by the sunset, he rose, stretched his long wiry body and began to stride purposefully down towards the Matabole River, the river which has its confluence with the Majale River in the core of the Lower Majale pride's heartland." Inspired by Saturday's atmosphere, I couldn't resist putting pen to paper, so this is the edited version of the poem that I scribbled on the back of one of my flying maps while the 1930s was being recreated around me:
An Ode to a Vintage Past Infused in the air Is locomotive cologne; Water soot steam sweat and oil. Intoxicating In its simplicity. It engulfs everything In deep breaths As an eruption of smoke Forcing a bass beat Along steel railways. The sound elicits crinkled Smile creases Like lines of crumpled paper On the edges Of coal-darkened engineer eyes Flames lick The edges of a riveted boiler And brass-rimmed gauges Keep a pressured watch Like horn-rimmed goggles. A patchwork of iron Clack under laden wheels And a churlish whistle Echoes in meandering hills. Overhead An elongated note that Is Gypsy in origin Winds canvas wings Whipping a yellow-blue biplane. Leather-jacketed pilots Flock to the steam, Their silk-white scarves Undulating from the cockpit And they peer earthwards. Returning their open-mouthed smiles Is eloquent coachwork And wooden spoked-wheels Varnished to a sheen Of bright coloured cars. Shining brass and nickel and silver Headlights chase the Tiger and the train With the cacophony Of combustion Resonating steam and fuel. The past and present combine And in some way a penny drops From the pleasure of reconnecting With romance And reminiscence. Of paintings and stories Charcoal-sketching Glorious days of Hard men, Beautiful women. When travel was not An irritant but an exploration And flight was not a passing drone But a source of upward awe. Of excitement. The senses remind us That our past is not too far away And while we might be lost In being frantic We can still take time to appreciate. Courtney Watson Over this past weekend I was fortunate enough to be able to combine everything that I love into two spectacular days. I'm going to add some photographs of the event which will probably do more justice that my writing (which will come later) but in summary it started with an early drive on Saturday Morning in the Alfa Monza to Krugersdorp Airfield where I began to arrange the cars and aircraft in the twilight dawn. The 1904 de Dion, 1911 Fiat, 1945 Cessna 140 and 1941 Tiger Moth all needed to be parked along the apron at the airfield. Then it was a short flight over the steam train to Orient airfield among a gaggle of other period aeroplanes and lunch at Magaliesberg with a backdrop of the other veteran cars and train. Then back to Orient in the Fiat alongside the puffing Reefsteamers engine for a flight back to Krugersdorp! Photo credits to Athol Franz, Freek du Toit, Heinrich Kirstein, Ian Morison, Maurice KurpershoekNiel Swart, Paul Koski, Peter Thomas, Pierre Lombard, Shaun Bell and Vanessa Bentley. On Sunday, Dad organised a run for the cars older than 90 years around the Krugersdorp Game Reserve. It is quite something to be able to drive among the animals in a vehicle that was made at the turn of last century!
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