My late Father’s aviation memories.

Many thanks to you all for your contributions to this thread. For me this is what makes aviation history so interesting. What a time it was then to have been around to have the courage and desire to experience flight for it’s own sake, before aeriel warfare’s contribution.
The last flight my father took was as a guest (in 1971 I think), to fly in Concorde, before the commercial flights had begun. Apparently inside it was full of scientific test instruments, and the flight lasted for about 30 minutes over Wiltshire and the south west with about twenty people on board. I thought that Concorde must have taken off from kemble, but recently have been told it’s runway would not have been long enough. So can only guess it must have been Hullavington.
Anyway, in adult life my father lived in Malmesbury Wiltshire where it is recorded that a monk called Elmer made himself some wings an jumped off the tower spire of the town’s Abbey in the year 1010, and it is said glided for about 400 ft before breaking both legs in the fall. Later he wanted to try a second time, but the abbot refused. So it took another 800 years before the likes of Sir George Cayley to take to the air and fly again !