My tribute
I wrote the following (very) short piece of fiction to help me express my feelings about being at Shoreham on that day, the loss of Brian, and as a tribute to everyone whose life involves flying and aeroplanes, including my friend Cecil Filmer who flew in the fleet Air Arm and died earlier this year at the age of 94. I want to emphasise that it is nothing but fiction, and I did not know Brian, but I was touched by the general wish of ‘blue skies’ and the writing flowed from that.
Needless to say, if anyone finds it inappropriate, or just bad, please let me know and I will remove it. But it is meant with only good intentions.
Blue Skies
The pilot had known something was wrong, and that there was nothing he could do about it. But he had felt no fear, possibly because everything had happened so quickly, or because he had always known that one day this moment might come.
But the moment never did. He was not at all surprised to find the Hurricane now flying straight and level, in a clear sky with no ground visible. The Second World War fighter cruised onwards, almost silent. They must be at a very high altitude, but it didn’t seem cold.
He became aware of certain feelings, emotions and knowledge that might be described as an epiphany, but this too, did not seem to come as a surprise. There were ways of moving from some ways of being to others, and he had found one.
He had always loved the Hurricane – it was a beautiful aircraft that responded to his touch and flew every manoeuvre he wanted, with no fuss or protest, and seemed to share the lift in spirit that such aerobatics brought him. But only now did he realise he really loved this machine, every stitch in the canvas, every rivet, because it was part of the same universe that he was bound to. He and the Hurricane were merely parts of the same whole, and he loved it with a power that only comes with the truest connection and understanding.
For the Hurricane was of course a work of pure perfection, everything about it was right in this place. It worked in perfect harmony with the world around it. He did not know how he had never seen this before.
He was also now perfection, linked atom, molecule and cell with everything around him, and the Hurricane in particular. With a childlike joy he flipped the antique aircraft into a cascade of aerobatic manoeuvres, climbing up into wingovers and stall turns, spinning wildly through the rushing air, corkscrewing in energetic but beautifully smooth barrel rolls. The Hurricane seemed to sing with elation, and he did the same.
The Hurricane climbed ever higher. The pilot wondered that he did not seem to need the oxygen mask, and that the Hurricane was able to perform so wonderfully in this rarified atmosphere. Not only had the engine not missed a beat since the aircraft went in, it had run as smoothly as a sewing machine, and with muscular reserves of power. The sun shone clearly up here, reflecting orange off the edges of the feathered clouds.
Soon though, it became clear that he must leave the machine, indeed, did not need it any more. Without sadness, he parted company from the aircraft and for a while they flew on side by side, in silence. After a while, the Hurricane banked away, waggled its wings and receded to a tiny cruciform against the pale sky, then disappeared altogether. The pilot continued flying, climbing into the sun.
He became aware, joyfully, that other figures now joined him. He had not been alone since the Hurricane departed, purely because he was connected to everything in this world by strands of something invisible and beautiful. The other figures were men, but not like men, and like him they flew, but did not need wings. He knew them as Ray, John, ‘Cobber’, Mark, Manfred, ‘Kik’, Mike, Lanoe and a host of others. They welcomed him into their brotherhood and with rapture he saw that they had freedom of the only domain any of them had ever really inhabited – the boundless blue sky.
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