Page 264 - Demo

260I went back to work but was in a real mess. I remember taking off for a solo flight I think it was the weather ship but if so it was a few days later. As I lifted off I thought just roll the aircraft hard right. It will thencartwheel, and I will be killed. The enquiry would just think that I had some control problem. I could not do it but it was close. I actually spoke to Adrian Streeter (an ex-student of mine who was now my boss) and suggested that I would prefer not to fly solo for a bit but actually I continued to do so. We went to the Jura on holiday after that. It was a bit fraught and the Jura was not so good. We had a canoe but it was hard to get down to the water and so after a week we left and went back to Annecy. This was a super place, camping by the lake and sometimes going to a beach where there was a high diving board and floating various logs to climb on. No health and safety rules in those days. The children loved it. And we enjoyed sailing our Topper on the lake. The only downside with camping at Annecy was the Dutch. We had three holidays there and each time the Dutch campers would spend hours meticulously cleaning their tent and equipment the day before they left. Sometimes they would then pitch a very small tent to spend the next night in. Or more accurately, part of their last night. They would get up at around 3 or 4 in the morning and set off for home. Presumably to get home in a day. The problem was that all the friends they had made over the holiday would gather round and they would chat for about an hour before setting off. It was not possible to sleep through the noise and so was very irritating. When we left, we just got up at our normal time, and if we were in our trailer tent, would ram everything into it, lash it down and be away very quickly. The idea would be that we would sort everything out when we got home. But being naturally lazy didn%u2019t usually bother. So, the next time we used the tent it would be full of sand and various bits of litter but we had made the most of our time abroad.When we got back, Gabby got a letter from John that he had sent to Beningbrough for her. She read it and then gave it to me to read. He