Page 146 - Demo

146between slim and non-existent), including the names of key players andfleet lists of the aeroplanes that they operated; and the itinerariesfollowed by the major travelling shows, including, in the case ofCobham%u2019s National Aviation Day Tours, the South African exercise of1932-33.Unusually for Air Britain, this hardback has a separate dust cover.Although the book runs to only 128 pages and actually feels quite %u2018slim%u2019the content turns out to be remarkably comprehensive. Coated paper isused throughout and this, allied to the page size, has allowed for the bestpossible reproduction of the numerous (I made it about 150) illustrations,many of them being given a whole (A4) page. Best of all, the book is apleasure to read. Cruddas gives us all of the information that we needpresented in a flowing prose, entirely devoid of typo-blight, that carriesthe reader easily along.The story is punctuated by entertaining anecdotes and new, to me atleast, insights. For instance, who knew that in 1929 an anonymous donor(Lord Wakefield) paid for 10,000 children to be given a free ride by AlanCobham and his team? Many members will be aware of Tom CampbellBlack, but who knew that the senior pilot and the senior engineer of histwelve-aircraft British Empire Air Displays team of 1936 were bothwomen? What about Claude Grahame-White who visited 121 townsalong the south coast, giving 500 demonstration flights and carrying1200 passengers; a remarkable achievement at any time, but this was in1914! Then again, I knew that Geoffrey Tyson%u2019s pre-war party trick wasto snatch a handkerchief from the ground with a hook attached to thewingtip of his Tiger Moth %u2013 but I had not really appreciated that he usedto do this twice a day, seven days a week %u2013 and then there was CharlesTurner-Hughes who logged 170 hours of inverted flight in 1932 alone.And just in case you thought that %u2018groupies%u2019 were a modernphenomenon, in the course of his 1932 tour, Cobham discovered that thesame girls who mysteriously turned up at successive venues were notaviation enthusiasts after all; they were being transported from site to sitein one of his Handley Page airliners, serving as a %u2018concubine carrier%u2019, toprovide a %u2018morale booster%u2019 for the boys. I could go on, but you ought toread this one yourself.It could be argued that an historical account of joy-riding is of littlerelevance to a military aviation society such as ours but there is a definitelink in that the barnstormers probably provided much of the inspiration