At the time of the loss of G-AVJZ I was working for Aviation Traders at Southend. I was a storekeeper there and the two men who died were well-known to me. There supervisor was also seriously injured and was off work for many months. They were stock-checkers and were working in the ‘dump’ which ATL maintained on the northern boundary, housing large drums of paint, oils and similar semi-volatile substances, as well as metals, etc. Some of these also burned and added to the smoke and flames when the aircraft caught fire.

I was also very active photographing aircraft at Southend through the 1960s and early 70s (pictures regularly published in ‘Aeroplane’, ‘Flight’, ‘Air Pictorial’, etc) and I still have a series of negatives I shot on 6 May 1967 of the burned-out wreckage of ‘VJZ lying on top of a pile of 45-gallon drums. The back end of the fuselage and fin are intact and recognisable and the registration clear on unburned panelling. The aircraft had turned more or less 180 degrees by the time it came to rest. Although I had seen the aircraft on engine runs during my lunch break on the day of the accident I had not photographed it – so far as I am aware, no-one has a photo of it intact in Channel Airways livery. Over the years, Channel managed to lose a few other aircraft in accidents, including a C-47 that flew into St Boniface Down on the IoW while carrying a cargo of daffodils. They also managed to severely bend two HS 748s on the same day at different airports!

The Hermes G-ALDC was notable as the first aircraft loss in UK to be officially attributed to acquaplaning. And Carvair G-ANYB did indeed first fly from Southend on 21 Jun 1961 – it lifted off runway 06 at 08.26 to be precise!. It was pursued by Freddie Laker’s personal Cessna 310D, G-ARAC, acting as ‘chase plane’.

In 1963 I was just about joining Aviation Traders at Southend, where I remained until the end of the decade. During my time there I shot thousands of pictures of resident and visiting aircraft, including numerous Austers. I managed a few rides in the Corporation’s Autocar G-AMFP, but never did get one in another well-known resident, the Rochford Hundred Flying Group’s Auster 5D G-ANHX. This despite being a friend and colleague of A J Jackson, one of the Group’s leading lights. I helped AJJ with the revision of his Putnam epic, ‘British Civil Aircraft Since 1919′, which in the process gre from two to three volumes. There are quite a number of my photos spread over the three, including several Austers. And to round off, there should be my picture of G-ANHX attached, taken at Southend c.1969’